Camden FC 8 - 1 Abbey United
19 November 2006 - Report by Paul O'Brien
CAMDEN GET 8 BUT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE
Starting Lineup: Kev Wright, Ashley, Catty (capt), Dave Lee, Ginge, Paul, Kirk, Kaan, Martin Layle, Little Chris, Searley. Subs: Burge, Gambling Kev, Benneth, Dan Ahern, Danny Marchant
Look at the top again, look at the score, the amount of goals we put away, and bear in mind we should have had several more. Not just chances where they were half a chance and the finish wasn’t up to much, but bona fide goals that we messed up. Mainly in the first half. There were several offenders; myself, Lee Searle and Loul to name just 3. Loul especially as he had an open goal and was 3 yards out, but placed the neat cutback over the bar in the same way as Cristiano Ronaldo had done only the day before against Sheffield Utd. “Miss of the season?” quoted several back pages on Sunday morning, Martin Layle thought to himself, “sounds like a wager to me”, so tried to do worse. How can a team have scored 8 goals and rue the fact the never scored more? Still though, this was the biggest win I have played in a Camden shirt, all 90 minutes of it.
We started the game from the first whistle. Pressured them straight away and looked the better team even if I say so myself. However, despite going clean through several times with many opportunities we squandered all of them and never actually scored until Searley made space for himself to shoot, the keeper got down to it but fumbled and it went over the line. That was about 35 minutes in, which was shocking that it had taken so long. Soon after, Searley was through again and finished expertly past their keeper. 2-0 Camden. Their keeper was clearly a friend of a friend doing them a favour filling in the absent goalkeeper spot as the defence never knew his name, and he couldn’t save anything that wasn’t straight at him.
Throughout the game the linesman (their manager) was flagging for absolutely every run we went on. I estimate about 20 offsides given against us, with about 10 of them being wrong. Particularly a through ball I cleverly put through their defence, splitting them like a hot axe through butter (….?) into little Chris’s path but the lino wrongly flagged. That would’ve been my defining moment for my game but for that, and I wouldn’t stop going on about it after the game. I felt cheated. The lino had favourites in each half, with Little Chris being the first half nomination seeing as his pace took him well past his marker after the ball was played through every time but the lino wasn’t having that. Little Chris would be replaced as Lino’s favourite in the second half though.
Lat years fixture against Abbey Utd saw us go 2 goals up, then they had 2 players sent off as we had 2 injured (myself being one of them) and they still came back to 2-2 and Kev Wright saved a penalty to keep it down to that. So when we went in 2-0 up at half time we would have to be careful to avoid a repeat performance.
Their Goal came very early after the restart, with Kev coming out to retrieve a cross, it coming off a few Abbey players and finally rebounding in off the fattest man in football. Let me explain. He probably weighs about 25 stone or more due to his huge pot belly. Whilst the shirts were baggy for the rest of the team, his one fit him like the Italy/Spurs football shirts or the England rugby world cup winning shirts. Skin-tight and figure-hugging. It also stopped too short at the bottom, leaving some of his belly hanging underneath the shirt like a bum hanging out of his front. Yet his right foot was so sweet!
He was pinging accurate long range passes across the field and he winded Goalie Paul with a shot from 40 yards in the away game, and also broke the hand of a friend of the football team (was actually watching this game from the sidelines) Grimbo, at goals in Bexleyheath with a thunderbolt shot. That’s right, he doesn’t just play Sunday football, but 5-a-side as well, and still manages to keep his weight that high and figure that unappealing. But what a player he would be if he slimmed down! His centre midfield partner was another quite beefy fellow, meaning their centre midfield partnership was more ‘stocky’ than even our one, with any Kirk/Kaan/Burge combo we could choose to use. Anyways, 2-1 Camden, and we had to start to kill the game off.
In the pub later on Kaan retold the story of when he had an effort soon after the restart that was charged down so the pace was taken off of it, and as the 50-yarder slowly rolled into the keeper’s hands ‘someone’ shouted “oooh”. I wonder who that was?
Ok, I cant be expected to detail every goal, I’m simply not going to. I do these reports at work and will get shot if I do that much writing instead of working for the crust. One that I will go through, though, is when Kaan dinked a lovely ball out to the right wing, who looked up to see Little Chris in the box and played it into him where the defender screwed up and it went to Chris, who finished into the net. It was all about the cross though, what dazzling wing play. That was my only assist of the day, though god knows I tried for more, especially about 2 minutes later when after a short pinball moment between me and their defender saw the ball come into my feet, I tried digging it out to shoot but heard Kirk arriving late to my left with a loud call for the ball, played it to him and he shot wide when it looked like he would have scored. A bobble was blamed. Little Chris also got 2 assists, for Kaan’s headed 2nd goal and Kirks goal.
Ok then I’ll do my best. Here are brief descriptions for the goals, not in chronological order mind…
Searley: both goals profiled above
Kaan (1st): after an O’Brien corner, Catty was fouled outside the box. Kaan had the free kick, the keeper expertly placed the wall right in the middle and stood behind it leaving wither side for Kaan to place it into. He chose the right hand side bottom corner
Kaan (2nd): a different corner, this one, possibly Danny Marchant. Catty headed it very very wide, Chris chased it down before it went off and scissor kicked it into the box and Kaan headed it in. Keeper flapped as it went just above him
Benneth (1st): through ball that he chased onto, rounded the keeper and finished into the empty net
Benneth (2nd): another through ball, but a superb finish with his left foot into the right hand corner
Chris: explained above
Kirk: Chris, taking a right wing or old-fashioned inside right position, crossed it low and the keeper tried jumping on it, spilled it to the waiting Kirk bubble
Towards the end of the game, their centre back asked if we needed a centre back so he could join us. A bit unfortunate for him, this game, as he wasn’t that bad a player. But the 3-5-2 tactic they deployed in the second half stretched the backs as the midfield wasn’t winning enough and the 3 backs couldn’t handle the pace of Chris or Ben (the lino’s new favourite when he came on in the second half), and the wings were given lots of space to provide chances as well. They had a really old man at the back as well, so he had no chance against the Camden attack. We took advantage with this, with 6 second half goals.
Warmlake sports-sponsored Man of the match was given to Kaan. And too right as well, eh Kirk?