Harchester United 4 - 0 Camden FC
26 November 2006 - Report by Paul O'Brien
CAMDEN NOT QUIET THE DREAM TEAM
Starting Lineup: Kev Wright, Danny Marchant, Ashley, Catty (capt), Dan Ahern, Paul, Kaan, Searley, Burge, Benneth, Little Chris. Subs: Gambling Kev, Mike Harvey, Dorm, Dave Lee
This week we had quite a treatment table, with Martin Layle turning up with father Dave Lee and claiming his unfitness to play. Long-term injury still kept Matt Prentice out, and Macca was silently absent in the sense that I haven’t heard from him in several weeks for explanation about anything at all. Wayward veteran full back Robinho Robinson, on an obliged contractual mini-tour of Scotland with the Fat Les All-stars caught the game in a 24 hour Edinburgh strip club and proclaimed: 'what a load of gash’. On the plus side, we had 2 of our players return to the side in Mike Harvey who had been out with work (that’s the problem with these non-committals, they blame work you see) and Danny Marchant – minus tape to hold his leg together - came back after a lay-off stretching back to the tour of Prague in May, and promptly slotted in at right back to cover Ashley, who was providing centre back cover for the missing Andy ‘Lord Lucan’ McEniry.
The Danson park pitch was glorious and well kept like a bowling green…actually it was atrocious. There was a constant hill gradient from one goal to the other, and also one from one sideline to the other meaning placing a ball on the floor in one corner of the pitch would see it slowly roll to the other far corner. Or it would do if the pitch weren’t bobbled. It was also positioned across the river, meaning a 5 minute walk to the changing rooms where you could shower off the dog shit using the danson showers, which dribbled the water out at such a pace it only ran down the metal pipe that supplied the water. And they had a ‘boot washing facility’, which was simply a bin full of muddy water. “Whats up with you, be a man and give it your all…” etc I hear you shout. Yet we pay the same subs to play a game at Corinthians where we were fed grapes afterwards and pampered by young virgins with palm leaves to cool us down, and even Abbey utd’s home ground gave us full facilities to the recently revamped Erith leisure centre.
Back to the game. Having won the toss, Harchester decided to shoot down the hill so we faced literally an uphill struggle. Yet we came out on top. The first half we were the better side, more potent in attack. Danny Marchant and myself bossed the right flank and had a lot of change out of their left-winger and left back, the left-winger having been probably their most productive player in the first game seeing as Catty was shackling their big centre forward. In fact, their left flank decided that if they couldn’t tackle me they’d take me out. I now have stud marks over my right knee, along my right shin, on my toes of my right foot, on my left calf, and a boot mark on my left knee where 3 of them ploughed through me while I was on the floor getting a free kick for us. I also have a bruised rib. Put hairs on your chest, wars do. In our attack dominance Little Chris managed to hit the post twice. Once from close range in a goalmouth scramble, another time from far off when bearing down on goal and trying to bare down on the keeper. Benneth had a good passage of flair play he wanted me to mention as well, when a high ball came his way so he threw himself into the air with aplomb in an attempt at an overhead kick, and his legs spun around and ended up not very near the ball at all so he was just flailing about in the air for a split second.
But from all of our attacks somehow we found ourselves 1-0 down at the break from a bit of pressure on our goal and they found themselves free on the edge of the 6 yards box to finish shortly before half time. We went into half time full of confidence that we could easily score more than they did in the second half, judging by the way we had played in the first and now we had the conditions working for us more.
The second half started with Kaan shooting from the centre. You can’t blame him, he has the biggest kick in the team and the wind was right behind him, shooting downhill. Didn’t go in, but at least it was on target. This started off a good 10 minutes dominance where the play was almost exclusively in their final third or their 18-yard box, but we never took full advantage of to notch one up on the score sheet. And again we paid the price when they scored again to make it 2-0.
At this point, their big centre forward who had been making headway all game when given the chance, made his way into the box where Ashley completely took him out. No penalty for some reason! Ashley decided he would shy away for a while and not draw attention to himself, and he did this by controlling the loose ball and running nearly 70 yards with it before the attack broke down.
On another attack, Ben had the ball on the left wing and tried making his way in the box, latching onto a stumble by their huge no. 5 centre back nicknamed ‘Tank’ by their team. As he tried running past, Tank grabbed hold of Ben’s legs and held him there so Ben couldn’t move! Yellow card tank, free kick to the Camden. Lee Burge floated the ball over the crowd of players and Chris belted it straight off the pitch from a yard off the by-line, as Searley shouted “corner ball, ref!”. What a crazy, hopeful shout.
Oh yeah and they scored 2 other goals, but I’m not going to describe them as it flatters them and makes a mockery of the dominance that we could’ve been so good in the first 45 minutes and still lose 4-0.
Warmlake sports-sponsored Man of the Match award, presented by bystander/coach Dave Lee, went to Ashley for this game.
And Ginge says you are all a bunch of losers.