Stamford AFC 4 Ashford Town 1
From Your Milton Keynes Correspondent
This will have to be a mini-report, I’m
afraid – not because I’m being affected by the apathy that’s hit the Club’s
Message Board of late, but because I’ve a busy week-end, and an even busier
week coming up. (It’s a sad day when work gets in the way of footy matters, but
it happens some times). It’s a shame, as Stamford is one of my favourite
venues, and it would’ve been nice to have done the trip justice, as I don’t
expect we’ll be playing Stamford again for a few decades. It’s probably just as
well for the team, though, as there wasn’t much complimentary that could have
been said about a pretty “P” poor performance (sorry about the stutter !).
Barry Gardner will also be relieved, as he had an absolute stinker – he’s a
talented player, but he played like his boots were on the wrong feet today.
Tim Thorogood missed the match, leaving
Assistant Manager Tony Reynolds in charge, and we were a bit light on playing
personnel, too, with Reynolds again naming himself as one of the three
substitutes, the other two subs being Joffy Thorogood and Danny Barham. (Those
of us hoping to see the likes of Stephen Ward and Harry Hrehorow given a run in
the first team continue to be disappointed, though not surprised – maybe the
policy is to keep the crown jewels under wraps !). The main problem in terms of
team selection this afternoon was in midfield – there was no Joe Wade for a
start, Simon Glover has been called back to Dover from his loan spell, Danny Lye
is suspended and Lewis Phillips and Tony Eeles seem to have disappeared as
quickly as they reappeared on the scene a couple of weeks ago. Simon Elliott
was at the game, but in his civies, so Mike Azzopardi joined Joby Thorogood up
front in yet another makeshift strike partnership.
The solution was to try to compensate for
a lack of midfield quality with quantity, as Ashford opted for a 3-5-2
formation, the unfamiliar five-man midfield being (from left to right) Tom
Evans, Tom Adlington, Buster Beaney, Martin Anderson and Barry Gardner. Matt
Bower, today’s skipper, played in the centre of the back three, alongside Aaron
O’Leary and Rob Gillman. John Whitehouse was in goal, so maybe our hero has
beaten off the challenge of Mr O’Hara, who was another who was nowhere to be
seen today.
My plan to make this a brief report by
just mentioning the major events has been stimied by the fact that this was a
match full of incident (but this isn’t to say that this was a “good” match, as
there was little of quality from either side).
Stamford opened the scoring in the ninth
minute, with an unnecessary penalty. Gareth Pritchard had his back to goal,
about 10 yards outside the Ashford penalty area. With a deft, but pretty
obvious, little over-head flick, he effectively took three Ashford players out
of the game, and ran off towards the visitors’ goal. He had got as far as the
corner of the penalty area, when Rob Gillman and Barry Gardner, in an effort to
recover from their initial error, managed to bundle Pritchard over. The referee
had no hesitation in, quite correctly, awarding a penalty. Robbie Maddox
stepped up to open the scoring, with John Whitehouse offering no resistance,
“going the wrong way”.
Pritchard should have scored again, after
25 minutes. The limping Matt Bower was badly exposed for pace on the right edge
of the Ashford box, and when the ball was pulled back from the by-line to the
unmarked Pritchard, the Stamford No.10 unbelievably side-footed over the bar
from about ten yards.
Ashford’s equaliser, three minutes later,
came out of nothing, with a quick break out of defence. Michael Azzopardi
picked the ball up on the half-way line, and knocked it forward to Joby
Thorogood. Joby, surely the find of a disappointing second half of the season,
now that he’s emerged as a credible striker at this level, wisely held the ball
up, waiting for support. His side-footed pass found Azzopardi in the centre,
whose rather scuffed shot seemed to bobble over the diving Michalik, in the
Stamford goal, and crept over the line. A defender managed to get back to hoof
the ball into the roof of the net, but I’m sure the ball was already in, to
give Michael his first goal for Ashford.
This goal seemed to rattle the home side,
as players and supporters showed plenty of frustration for the remainder of the
half. It was the usual gripe – that all the referee’s decisions were going
against them (yawn !) – but Geoff Russell, the man with the whistle, did make
some strange decisions. The result was that Robbie Maddox was booked for an
incident off the ball, and Pritchard received a yellow for dissent.
The Stamford management must have had a
few things to say to the players during the break, as the second half saw the
home side more focused, and they were able to wrap up an easy victory. The
second half also saw Ashford revert to a more orthodox 4-4-2 formation, with
Our Mart’n playing mostly at right-back (as he had begun to do towards the end
of the first period).
The first significant event of the second
half came in the 51st minute, when John Whitehouse came for a cross
and got thoroughly clattered. There was no whistle from the referee, so, if
Martin Anderson hadn’t cleared the ball as it trickled towards the goal,
Stamford would have gone 2-1 up. More significantly, John was clattered to the
extent that there was a seven-minute break whilst he received attention from
Owen de Sade (the only de Sade at the ground, as far as I could see). He
emerged with a plaster over his right eye, and a large white bandage of the
sort patented by Terry Butcher, and bravely decided to carry on.
Whitehouse could not be blamed for the
next two Stamford goals. The first of these, in the 59th minute, had
an element of comedy about it (but Tim T wouldn’t have been laughing if he’d
been there). Barry G had plenty of time to effect a simple clearance on the
edge of the Ashford area, but instead he fluffed it, and the ball just spun up
off his right boot. Kevin Ainslie was there to gratefully thump the ball into
the corner of the net. Stamford’s third goal, in the 68th minute,
was the best of the match. A free-kick, after a push by Aaron O’Leary, was
taken quickly, and spread wide to the right – a cross was whipped in, and
Gareth Pritchard flicked the ball firmly into the corner of the net, with his
head.
Rambo made the first substitution of the
match four minutes later, and it was a tactical move – Joffy Thorogood went
into midfield, and Aaron O’Leary was taken off, to restore the 3-5-2 formation,
with (from left to right) Gillman, Bower and Anderson at the back.
The change did not stop the home side,
who are still going hammer & tongs for a top-seven finish, from making sure
of a valuable three points with a fourth goal, which came in the 75th
minute. A corner on the right was floated in, swinging right under John
Whitehouse’s crossbar – with the ‘keeper under a great deal of pressure from
Malcolm Ndekwe, the ball dropped over the line, and, in the absence of a
whistle from the referee, the goal stood. This latest blow left John Whitehouse
in a great deal of trouble, and, with his hands on his knees, he had to give up
the struggle and was substituted. He got a tremendous ovation from the crowd as
he trooped off to the dressing-room, for his courage in carrying on for so
long, but it did leave us with the question of who was going to take over in
goal for the last quarter of the game. Tony Reynolds lived up to his nickname
of “Rambo” by deciding to take over himself.
At the same time, Danny Barham came on
for Buster Beaney, who had had a rare opportunity to start a game for the first
team; (in fact, it might even have been his first start). I’m not in the habit
of naming a Man of the Match – and it would have been difficult to single
anyone out from this poor display – but Buster looked as accomplished, and as
good on the ball, as anyone out there in a green shirt.
It was in the 85th minute that
Stamford came closest to adding a fifth goal. From yet another corner on the
right, Gareth Pritchard rose well to meet the ball, and got his header on
target, only for Rambo to make a good save, finger-tipping the ball onto the
bar.
Three minutes later, Joffy reminded us
that the Thorogoods were in town, with two fairly wild challenges in succession
– these earnt him a yellow card, but a worse foul was to follow. With three
minutes of injury time having been played, and with the three points well &
truly sewn up, Stamford had a corner on the left. Tony Reynolds did well to
punch clear, but was laid out as Dennis Rhule came flying in with a late and
deliberate body-check. It’s not unheard of for a team to want to give a
stand-in goalie a whack, just to let him know what the game’s all about – but
in the 93rd minute, when your team’s 4-1 up, and the ‘keeper’s
approaching pipe & slippers middle-age ?!
As it turned out, Rhule got a yellow card, but another ref might have
made it a red one.
So three comfortable points for Stamford
– with Bashley and Banbury both losing, it looks like the Daniels will be
securing a top-seven finish now. For Ashford, the most painful thing is that
this was the biggest defeat of the season – prior to this game, we could point
to the fact that our worst loss had been 1-3, which did the squad some degree
of credit.
And so the farewell tour of the Midlands
came to an end for Your Milton Keynes Correspondent. Next season there will be
no more Stamford, Histon and Banbury, but instead reports will be coming from
the likes of Tooting, Dartford and Cray. I must say that I’m thoroughly looking
forward to it - but not much !
No comments:
Post a Comment