FIVE A SIDE DISASTER VENTURES - FEBRUARY 22ND 2002 |
It's a rainy and dull Sunday in March, and most of the Venture community who are currently studying away from Marple have descended upon the town. The reason? Partly for an 18th birthday party, and partly to defend their title of Champions in the County five a side competition. Marple fielded two teams: the reigning champs and a team of nippers. I shall be following the exploits of the reigning champs, who let me share their team bus on the way to the Ardwick powerleague pitches. Maybe the twits will write a report for the nippers team? Anyway, we arrived at the pitches on time, with many of us still feeling the after effects of a night partying at Kelly's night-club in Marple. My review of that would make an interesting story, but, alas, I do not have the time or the space for such thing. We were put in to two "Champions league" style round-robin groups, with the top two in each four team group going on to the Semi-finals. Both Marple teams were grouped together, with a team from Manchester and a team from Woodley. Our first game came after the Marple nippers had just beaten Woodley. The match, against 2345th (or something) Manchester, was a relatively quiet affair, with Marple showing none of their passing, defending, or indeed, shooting skills. We scraped our way through comfortably enough though, with a 4-2 victory. We were equally shocking and disjointed in our next game, although the 6-0 scoreline may suggest otherwise. To be fair, we really were quite appalling, and, with the exception of a curling top-corner goal from Ian from 6 Yards out, we were nothing special - it was more to do with the fact that their team comprised a bunch of non-sporty people, who would have struggled to score against us if we had only fielded our goalkeeper. And so to the final group game, against Marple's nippers team. They had already failed to qualify, and even beating us would not have helped them - they would have gone out on goal-difference or because they had a worse record than the Manchester team. We went a goal down, but quickly turned it around to win about 4-3 or 5-3 in the end. We were complacent about beating them, and were making stupid errors in even the most basic of football skills. More importantly, we had abandonned our simple passing routine - we were more pray-we-don't-lose than pass-and-move. Still, we had qualified as group leaders, and would play the runners up from the other group. This was some bunch of pikes, who were only through because their group involved a girls team, and a bunch of geeks (No offence!). A seemingly easy draw turned out to be a lot more difficlt than we thought, and it went into extra time. This was the one game where our erratic goalie, Dan Hopwood, failed to perform. Generally, he was a reliable player, who we trusted to stop the opposition so much so that we often didnt bother with having any defence (Though one suspects this was more a tactical error and collective laziness as opposed to actually not wanting any defence!). Three times we went ahead, and three times they shot from distance and watched the ball squirm under our keeper. In extra time, we finally made sure with 2 goals, and the match was pretty much sealed. There were rumours that we played five minutes of extra time rather than golden-goal because we had a supporter in the referee, who didn't want to see the othe team go into the final. Even so, we beat them in the end. We were in the final, despite not having yet found our tempo, our passing ability, or any of our sharpness in front of goal. In the past, we have been able to score the majority of our chances, but here we struggled to get the ball into the back of the net. The final (against the Manchester team we beat in our first game) also went to extra time, after an own goal in the first minute by yours truly (They booted the ball at my foot as I was running back, as opposed to me actually intending to kick the ball). With minutes left on the clock, we were awarded a penalty when their big-boned full-back ran into his teams goal area. Rick Statham dispatched the resulting spot-kick with a flair and panache that can only be found when shooting from two yards out! On to golden goal extra time (We didn't have or friendly referee this time!). They scored a flukey goal, and they took the trophy home with them. At this point I'd like to point out that our keeper suffered a fractured wrist mid-way through the final, and, at the time of writing, is in a plastercast which he expects to be wearing for the next few weeks. His bravery, courage, and good all-round performances (Believe me, he was probably the best player on the pitch in most games, managing to save the vicious shots the opposition kept slinging at him), should be commended. Many thanks, Dan, and get well soon. In all honesty, and without trying to sound too modest, I think we could, and should, have beaten them. But our passing was at best "poor" and our shooting "well off target". I have to hold my hands up and say that I didn't play my best. I wasn't mentally prepared to charge around all over the pitch, and I was not the only one. My shooting was also abysmal, and my passing was less than satisfactory. I could give you a long list of reasons why we didn't win, but it is difficult to explain the reasons why 1st Marple Ventures lost their County 5-a-side champions crown without appearing to try and hide behind a barrage of excuses. When I was writing this article, the one thing I didn't want to do was make excuses - after all, the other team beat us on the day. However, on a day when we have proper Goalie gloves (Dan played in woolly gloves for most of the time!), when it wasn't the day after the night before, when we were all fitter, or even just when we were all hungry to be champions - and willing to do anything to reach the top (Including running around a bit). Any other day and maybe our luck would have been different. Perhaps it would have been one of the members of our team who scored a dramatic golden goal in extra time. Perhaps not. Either way, we'll be back next year. And I, for one, will take it far more seriously. My fitness regime has already begun, and I'll be desperately trying to regain my finishing skills throughout the year. Next year, those creeps will get what's been comng for them. Until then, we'll have to be happy to have the Mersey Moot 5-a-side champions title (at least until September...) |