Category: Match Reports 2s

Merton Res 5 Broomfield 1 (HT 2-0)

AFA intermediate Cup

This was a good performance from ‘Team Handsome’ with a comfortable win in the end against competent SAL opposition albeit from a lower division. It took a good while for Merton to establish their dominance against gritty opposition. The first 20 mins were pretty even and when our boys carved out some really good chances we missed them comprehensively. This profligacy in front of goal was worrying and Broomfield wasted a couple of chances of their own before DQ stepped up to score our opening goal after 35 mins. The second came very soon after when DQ headed home to finish off a really good move and cross. (H-t 2-0). The second half continued in the same vein. DQ completed his hat trick and then Olly Ross came on as sub in pink/orange boots ( I kid you not).What was even more amazing he then scored two goals with his first two touches with the minimum amount of effort. He never was one to hare about the field but he is only a shadow of his former self. Complacency and sloppy defending allowed the visitors to score a goal which their man finished very well. A good performance with Merton’s defence looking good. Pearcey and Marc play well together as centre backs but despite all the goal scoring Joe Griffin was voted Man Most Handsome (MMH) and walked of with Cherbs. Sam worked his socks off but missed a few good chances but the reason for his lack of luck in front of goal was all too obvious in the laundry. The No 6 shirt was inside out and everyone knows unless you put your kit the right way round you never score. Anyway we solved the tape problem.  The game was really well reffed in authoritive style by Peter Chmelinski. It was good to have the 1s down to support our boys and a great buzz in the bar afterwards.

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Merton Res 1 Old Finchleians Res 1  (HT 0-0)

An interesting game with a lot of good passing football with the goals coming from two really good strikes. The first half finished goalless with both sides creating opportunities and both keepers being kept busy. The second half continued in that fashion but with about twenty minutes to go OFs failed to clear a corner other than to Darcy 25 yards out who scored with a great strike. There were times when we looked like scoring the important second goal but were prevented twice by unpunished cynical fouls and finally by their keeper felling our player through on goal. The red card he received about five mins from time seemed to galvanise OFs into a late rally. With Merton under the cosh there was some naïve defending and we ultimately conceded a free kick in a bad position. So with only seconds remaining their striker buried the equaliser with a great strike. In fairness a draw was probably a fair result. Old Fs had some good players out there and played some good attractive passing football. They were very vocal and I felt intimidated the referee. Brian West is a ref who likes to let things roll which can be good but this game needed a firmer hand.  It was good to see Rich Moore back in midfield after his bad injury last season.  It would have been a good three points but one is OK. Our defence did well to limit their lively forwards and Marc Wilson and Paul Pearce were outstanding. We need to kick on from this and try and get some consistency and regularity in availability.

For the last game of the season the 2s entertained the team that finished second in their division but were regarded by our side as easily the best team in the division and against whom they had enjoyed a really good game earlier in the season even though they had lost 3-1. The Oilers are a new club that are born out of Nottingham Uni and their three teams have gone through the divisions to reach the top in a very short space of time. The only irritation is that they settled on an all yellow strip for their club colours and so for this game and because the 3s were wearing the 2s normal blue change strip the 2s wore our clubs ceremonial dress of white shirts and black shorts, appropriate as this was to be Will Ts last game before he goes to oz and possiibly Crusher’s too (for a season anyway??).

We started in lively fashion and had a very good shout for a pen when we capitalised on a rare defensive mix up but a defensive block denied us. Jase was winning the ball in the air and Will’s pace was always threatening but the Oilers were solid in defence and took control of the game through the midfield. The first goal came from a well delivered curling free kick awarded for a perfectly good Ben Cook tackle. It seemed the only way to defend this was to head it decisively into our goal by one of our own who shall remain nameless. This happened towards the end of the first half and it was 2-0 early in the second when we lost possession and fannied about till their man took charge and smacked it into our goal. Dave Hitchcock and Connor had been very solid in defence and Liam was having one of his best games getting very involved in midfield and supporting the MMH Crusher who wa again outstanding. That was the point when I left. I wasn’t doing a Terry because this was a good entertaining game of footy but DQ rather than head our first goal had gone down in a writhing heap and had to go to hospital. I am reliably informed that the final score was 3-0 and we continued to create and miss ‘sitters’ and their 3^rd goal was unstoppable. Crusher was ‘Man Most Handsome’ again.

Whilst at St Georges DQ had his dislocated shoulder x-rayd put back in and it disobediently popped out again put back in again and x-rayd again. But by 7.30 he was in the recovery position (ie having copious quantities of alcohol in The Swan and working up an appetite for the obligatory end of season curry. I sloped off to bed unaware of the dramas at the hospital where the doctor had wanted to cut DQs white shirt off his back to save him the pain. Can you imagine that … what are they thinking about. Do they train these doctors??

Well that is the end of a slightly disappointing season. Having come down from the 1^st Division it is disappointing to finish in the bottom half particularly when at half way we were well placed. Thanks to Wilgo, CHJ, Marc and Sherbs who helped run the side and the team generally had a lot of fun.

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It had a distinctly end of season feel to the game. We definitely had nothing to play for other than enjoyment and Old As had convinced themselves  that they still had an outside chance of promotion. It was another weekend when we’ve struggled for numbers and cancelled the 5sand 6s matches so we could get 11 players for the 2s, 3s and 4s games.

We thought we had 11 for this game but that looked a bit tenuous. Expecting a lot of traffic through Barnes  generated by the boat race we left early. No traffic and plenty of time to take an interest in Craig Usher’s progress or lack of it as he was driving down from Hull to make up the eleven. Pictures of grid locked motorway did not look too promising but with 2 mins to spare he pulled into the car park, changed on the touch line and got stuck in for another ‘Man most handsome’ performance.  Half time 0-0  and nothing much had happened.  Chris Rayner was ghosting his way into their box when he was upended was about the only moment of note but the second half was completely different and action packed.  Old As cored very early in the second half when they did exactly what we said they would do if we did not do what we were supposed to do.  We did not close their midfielder down, he picked his spot and gave Sherbs no chance. Good strike and a good goal. Old As took charge of the game but failed to make it 2-0 and after about 15 mins we built up a really good move with along cross finding Femi who cushioned his header to Tom Rowe who smashed in the equaliser. We had barely got over that when another great piece of attacking football saw Femi set up Connor who finished decisively to put us 2-1 ahead. Old As came back and got a good equaliser with a powerful header from a corner. And I think we settled for the draw and they did not.  In the last seconds of injury time a bit of pitiful defending and although their man was well offside it was no excuse and Old As had won the game and kept their chances of promotion alive. I don’t think so. But it was a good game at a nice place against good oppo and on balance they probably deserved to win it. The ref did OK apart from the odd offside and with no linos you cant complain about that. I am rather hoping that EBOG and Norsemen go up and Old As stay down so we can have a couple of good games next season rather than the trips to North London. All our team worked really hard. Crusher deserved hi MMH award and Tom Rowe and Femi ran him close. You could make a case out for several others CJ but he had not had a shave, Connor Hitch Liam but all our boys worked really hard.   It was disappointing to lose at the end but it did not really matter to us and it was soon wiped away by Many Clouds in the National.

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As Merton took the field of play

They needed goals galore

For this was not just any match

Today, was Score for Moore.

Yes, the build-up to this game was dominated by the absence of Merton liar Rich Moore. Keen to do their fallen comrade proud, the yellow army set about their mission of sealing three averagely valuable points.

Up against them was a tenacious Old Blues side keen to make amends after a defeat in the reverse fixture earlier in the season. But Merton were fired up after what turned out to be one of the warm-ups of the season. Fast, powerful, electric and assured by the cool, calm and curly centre back pairing of Eggleston and Hitchcock, the front 6 were unrelenting in closing down and hassling Old Blues off the ball, and quick to release the brutal Jason Thomas and the astonishingly good looking Will Taylor up front.

It wasn’t long before the high intensity paid dividends. At just the second corner of the game, Hitchcock showed a rare flash of offensive brilliance. Picking his spot on the inside of the defenders shin, he angled a deflected effort that flew over the line and some seconds later hit the back of the net. 1-0.

But, like the next few weeks of Rich Moore’s life, this was to be no walk in the park. Old Blues hit back – a corner of their own turned into the net by an unmarked number 10 who had quite nice hair.

Cue Jason Thomas. The one man army spent ten minutes showing that bullying is not just for the playground. Thomas was both an immovable object and an unstoppable force, tearing holes in the Blues’ defence with a relentless energy. The rewards came quickly, with two goals in quick succession, the second a true poacher’s effort, capitalising on great pressure by Arogundade on the right.

Seeking a hat-trick and the opportunity to leave the pitch littered with Old Blues corpses, Thomas instead found himself the victim, landing elbow first after falling from a 13ft leap in the air and ending his involvement in the game.

The Merton momentum persisted, however, and it swiftly turned into the Will Taylor show. Striding forward with legs that wouldn’t be out of place on a prize racehorse, Taylor made mouths water as a bead of sweat dripped invitingly from his stylish headband onto his powerful neck. Even clad in Merton yellow, his rippling washboard abs dazzled defenders even when, for a brief moment, they took their eyes off the considerable, muscular thighs, all the more distracting because of the Welshman’s bespoke size XXS shorts. But it wasn’t all about his seductive eyes and impressive frame.

Moving into the second half, Taylor, having breezed past four defenders with consummate ease, paused just long enough before pulling his sizeable trigger to think “what would Richie Moore do?”. And just like that, without a defender in sight, he hurled himself to the ground in a manner of which the stricken Moore would have been proud. A timely reminder of why the team was so motivated.

The referee, quite rightly, reached for his pocket immediately, taking Taylor’s name, shirt and home number before showing him a deserved yellow. Taylor scored two goals.

Old Blues rallied, notching again from a corner after lazy marking from Eggleston, but it was at best a consolation as Merton saw the game out for a handsome 5-2 victory.

Mission accomplished. A hard-fought victory, but with the hilarious thought of a bedridden teammate engrained in Merton minds, the determination to score for Moore carried them through and secured what will almost certainly be an inconsequential victory.

EBOG Reserves 2 – 1 Merton Reserves

Saturday 7^th March 2015

Attendance: c.10

As has become Team Handsome routine for north London away trips, Saturday started at Giraffe at Kings Cross where a wonderful session of coffee, snacks and compliment exchanges was enjoyed by all. Richard Moore elected to turn up without wearing any Merton attire and received his first strike of the day. Willy T, having travelled down from his north London home to receive some compliments, then enjoyed a relatively hassle-free trip back up the Northern line with the rest of the team save for the now-standard attention the team receives from the female half of the general public.

Shortly before reaching the EBOG clubhouse, after a reasonably long walk from the tube, Richard Moore decided he couldn’t wait to get to the toilets and relieved himself in some nearby bushes. An EBOG spectator stopped his car to express his displeasure at this turn of events. Strike two.

Fast forward to game time. The cliché ‘a game of two halves’ is thrown around a lot but this one really was. The first half being approximately 45 minutes and the second half roughly the same. The referee for the day really was a phenomenal time keeper – nothing more, nothing less.

At Handsome HQ we’re more than happy to come up with a range of excuses when we don’t win. The pitch was really terrible and unfortunately conducive to a long ball game which really isn’t what the current Handsomes are all about. We set up as a 3-5-2 which has worked well for us in the past but, on this pitch, a 5-0-5 might have worked better. Most of the early chances fell to Merton but the lottery of the bounce and some less than ideal finishing meant we didn’t capitalise.

Richard Moore was the victim of the first of 3 stonewall penalty shouts that Merton had turned down by the referee. The challenge itself being a wild, stud-up lunge taking man, ball and then more man. Richard unfortunately had to go off and was taken to the Handsomes’ favourite north London hospital earning strike three (and a predator on his return from injury) in the process. Ryan or Liam Stevens came on to replace Richard.

Merton hit the post and blasted over from 2 yards in a goal mouth scramble from a corner but EBOG were the only team to score in the first half with a long ball finished well with a lob over the onrushing DQ.

Constant pressure from Merton in the second half again wasn’t rewarded. We hit the underside of the bar through big Jase from another corner and missed numerous other chances. Willy T was clearly fouled twice in the box. Firstly getting a free-kick on the edge of the box instead of a penalty and secondly, unfathomably, getting a yellow card for diving.

With about 20 minutes to go EBOG got their second from a fortunate floated free-kick that went straight in. Nothing that stand-in keeper DQ could have done about that.

Eventually Merton scored with about 10 minutes to go. Yet another corner that came back out to Rayner who crossed again for Ryan or Liam Stevens to head home well. Further pressure came to nothing though – Willy T, Rayner and Cookie all failing to do anything from 4 free-kicks, each one about 25 yards out.

Overall some good individual performances in difficult conditions but just not quite enough. CrUsher and Wilgo dominated their opposing central midfielders, Egg and Cookie did well at the back (Egg managing to complete at least 3 of his c.50 attempted passes) and Conor, on the right, did well to hold his own against a rather competitive lunatic playing at left back.

Stand out performers though were Ryan or Liam Stevens running the show in the second half in midfield and Joe Griffin marshalling the back 3. They went home with the topless portrait of Wilgo and Egg.

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On the back of a fine run of form, the 2s headed to Chiswick to take on promotion rivals Polytechnic. Wilgo had a strong outfield ten at his disposal with some young club players helping out to give us three on the bench. Notable absentees were Craig Usher, midfield stalwart, and the dangerous Femi Arogundade, still recovering from a knock. With Sherbs hunting whales in Mexico, we tried not to blubber too much about the lack of a keeper and when Wilgo threw down the gauntlets, DQ stepped in to pick them up.
As the match kicked off, the Chiswick wind was blowing sharply across the pitch, but Merton started strongly, the Polytechnic backline immediately finding themselves under considerable pressure. Taylor’s marauding runs prompted by Thomas’s probing passes were backed up by some strong running from midfield, Wilgo leading by example. Two or three decent half-chances came and went before Taylor burst through and struck firmly past the Polytechnic custodian. The goal had been coming and was due reward for a great first half. The good work was, in true Merton style, almost immediately undone, when we failed to deal with a teasing set piece which ended up in a back post huddle and the ball deflecting away to safety off the outside of a post. But that was as tense as it got for DQ before half-time.
Polytechnic are a good team and an improvement in their play duly arrived after the break. That said, in the early stages of the second half, we had a couple of very promising counters which could have resulted in the game being put to bed. The build-up play was excellent, but we just couldn’t find the final pass. Polytechnic sensed they were still very much in it and began to apply pressure. A series of free kicks and corners penned us in and eventually the opposition broke through with a low shot, DQ having no chance (the writer of this article confesses that he can’t really remember the goal, but considers the above description ‘close enough’ for publication). It was very tough on the hard-working Merton defence who excelled throughout the contest, lead by captain Marc Wilson, who just seemed to be everywhere.
Buoyed by their goal, Polytechnic were in the ascendency by the end of the game and we found ourselves hanging on a bit. Merton hearts were in mouths when a low shot flashed past the post in the final seconds, but on the balance of the whole game, a draw was a fair result.
We retired to the bar, where Marc Wilson wasn’t presented with the MMH trophy even though he won it. The miscreant who had left the trophy at home placated the baying crowd with a Predator, but it was tough on Marc whose performance more than merited holding it aloft with pride.

A day at the Bank.

It is always a pleasure to have an away game at the Bank of England. It is nice and close, good facilities, good bar and food great pitches and a nice bunch of guys that run the club and are very welcoming.

Knowing that BOE’s 1s had a AFA senior quarter final cup tie against Old Wilsonians I pitched up early so I could catch the first half hour or so. It was good to see a strong line up of officials for that game.

Picture from left to right. Phil Cook (OWCs) Richard Melvin (Kew Ass) and  Pat Morrisey (Old Sals). Particularly good to see Pat running the line as i had heard that he had not been well. The first half hour was quite even although there were signs that OWs were getting on top and the BOE keeper mada a couple of saves. As the pics show the Bank wore a Chelsea change kit while their 2s lined up in the Chelsea home kit.

So on to the 2s game. This was a bit of a disappointing result but it was far from a disappointing game.  Both sides played some good passing football on a good surface taking all things into consideration, like a comparison with Jo Hood. Although we got on top the Bank were always dangerous and slightly against the run of play went ahead after about 20 mins with a good move down the right a cross and powerful shot that Sherbs saved well but the Bank striker got to the rebound first and fired home. We cam at them very strongly after that and their goal had a charmed life. Thier keeper made some good saves and it was good to see as he is just coming back from 6 months off with a back problem. He played well with no ill effects. Our equaliser was  a great move down the right and a cross which Jase fired home. In the second half we went ahead with another great goal Jase firing home from the edge of the box after being set up by Will T. We did not add to that and it never looked to be quite enough and an equaliser came with 15 mins to go when Sherbs could only parry a terrific strike through a ruck of players, saw it late did well to get a foot to it etc etc etc  and their sub who had come on tucked it away I say he had come on but he had been offside most of the time that he was on.. WE ended up hanging on at the end and they did hit the post. So a point was probably fair. We did not take our first half chances and paid the price. The game was not played in the best spirit as we had some poor behaviour from both teams and with the ref being fair but a non interventionist it could have got ugly. It did for a bit. All in all a good day out. Jase with 2 goals got his Man of the Match award and dubious trophy.

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This was a very good win for our reserves against a very Strong AP side. We had already lost to them earlier this season when AP beat us 6-4 in North London playing most of the game with 10 men after a red card. But our boys bounced back from a disappointing result against Norsemen last week to take all three points in a close game. We lead at half time through a terrific Chris Rayner strike from 20 yds that finished off a good passing movement . AP equalised from a far post header from a corner but Tom Rowe scored what proved to be the winner on about 70 mins when he was played through and hit an early shot  hard and  low into the corner. Ally Pally are still well placed for promotion and it is probably between them, NUFC oilers and Norsemen. Our man of the match was Rich Moore.

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Norsemen have some of the best facilities in the SAL . The top pitch is well grassed and close to excellent modern large changing rooms. Even the drive round the M25 wasnt too bad. Weather cold and bright but when we got there the pitch was very wet. In my view it was unplayable ; one of the goal areas was a quagmire. The ref deemed it playable. And then both teams proved me wrong by attempting to play and to a large extent succeeding in playing good quality passing football on the bog. We got off to a good start but after 10 minutes and a couple of missed opportunities Norsemen took control. They scored after 25 mins and made it two nil after 35 mins when their No 9, a very strong player, held off a couple of challenges running through and firing home. A couple of really good saves from Sherbs kept us in the game at only 2-0 at half time. There was optimism as we kicked off in the second half changing from 4-4-2 to 3-5-1. We were also kicking downhill  with the wind and defending the shallow end. We also had then tide with us but on the downside the end we were attacking had not stood up very well to the first half skirmishing and resembled a hippos wallow. Still we dominated the second half and Connor Murphy gave us the belief we could at least get a draw by scoring a spectacular volley with half an hour left.  We pressed and pressed but could not get in a decisive strike and Norsemen were always dangerous on the break. So we lost 2-1. Norsemen Res play some very good passing football and have some very talented players. Merton are a very good football team on and off the pitch with great attitude. I was very proud of them all. No man of the match for me every one of them gave everything and Wilgo had them organised on and off the pitch. Even to to the extent of retrieving our match footballs from the same people who stole the points. If the pitch was not unplayable at the start it certainly was at the end.

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