Match Report

Farnborough rise to the occasion

This “home” game ended up being played at Norman Park owing to the Senior Vets' inferior status in the club hierarchy.  Not for the first time in recent seasons Meryl Clarke came to our rescue.  Pitch allocation, nets, step ladder, pegs, corner flags, instructions on which entrance to use, hot showers, pitch condition status reports were all delivered by Meryl with customary efficiency.  On a dry but cold day the surface was a tad heavy and tufty but we were grateful to be getting a game after two inactive Sundays. We mustered fourteen players, including the welcome return of some very old faces.  Early arrivals Waine Hetherington, Sinisa Gracanin and Simon Thomas put the nets up while Patrice Mongelard pitched the corner flags.

FOBG Squad:  Matt Angelo, Phil Anthony, Ian Coles, Sinisa Gracanin, Jay Hardy, Waine Hetherington, Michael Hills, Louis Hussey, Colin Mant, Kypros Michael, Mick O’Flynn, Joe Skinner, Simon Thomas, Gordon Thompson.

Referee: Paul Parsons

Supporters: Steve Blanchard, Patrice Mongelard, Kayleigh Richards and Claire Skinner.

Director of Football:  Mick O’Flynn

Chief Football Correspondent:  Patrice Mongelard

Before the game started there was a lot of whingeing and moaning, including in particular from Man U fan Kypros Michael, no - not about his team being 27 points behind the league leaders and having played a game more, but about the state of the blue kit, last “washed” by Patrice Mongelard.  Kyp was so incensed that he volunteered to take the kit today so that Mrs Kyp could show us how it should be done.  The banter at my expense was rich – I had washed the kit in a river in Mauritius, I was exposing the team to the risk of trench testicles.  I was even invited to hang the spare kit to dry on the cross bar.

The damp and not fragrant kit though did not explain our flaccid display in the first quarter of an hour.  We were in control but there was no prospect of a happy ending to all our thrusting for a long time.  In what seemed like a very long half, particularly to spectators with feet getting colder by the minute, it took us until past the half-hour mark to register our first goal.  Jay Hardy finished with alacrity from close range after Kypros Michael had unselfishly fluffed his opportunity.  Five minutes later Lou Hussey produced a pass that people say English players do not have in their locker, unlike say Brazilians and Croatians.  From the edge of the box faced by defenders Lou slid his foot under the ball and flicked it up above the Inter Vyagra defenders into a deadly arc in the path of Kypros Michael who finished the move with a rasping shot that bulged the net.  Lou Hussey completed a golden ten minutes for us latching on to a Jay Hardy assist by putting the keeper on the ground before stroking the ball with majesty in the net. 

At 3-0 up the legendary O’Flynn tactical acumen became reality as two substitutions were made.  Five minutes later it was 3-2.  Our defence went all Easter Island as a cross to the far post was eased into our goal.  Soon after, we were overrun on the right and a low cross into our box was swept in to the great delight of the author of the cross.  It had been coming.  However, we contrived to end the half 4-2 up after Kypros Michael made the most of a low Jay Hardy cross. We had waited half an hour for a goal and then six came along in hardly any time. 

We carried on as we left off after play resumed.  Lou Hussey plated another goal for Kypros who provided a bit of a flourish by sending the keeper the wrong way.  It is extraordinary that this was our last goal of the game with about forty minutes left.  It was not for lack of trying.  We hit the woodwork three times in the second half after Inter Vyagra had scored their third with a delightful lob on the hour.  A Jay Hardy shot come off the inside of the post and fell to Kyp (enough said).  Kyp bamboozled two defenders before lifting a shot against the inside of the other post.  Lou Hussey got in on the act too by winning the crossbar challenge from three yards out. 

There were some delightful cameos in the midst of all this.  Matt Angelo pulled off a worldie by diving low to his right to palm a low drive around the post.  Gordon Thompson did several Messi impressions.  Lou Hussey had another south American moment in the box to set up an offside Kyp.  Sinisa Gracanin was a box to box metronome with finesse and technique.  Simon Thomas was a slippery customer, on the wing, toes twinkling furiously.

There were some scenes too that were less easy on the eye.  Kyp had a Humpty Dumpty moment with a 5.9 for artistic impression as he tripped himself in the centre circle after a failed attempt to control a ball.  This was almost as farcical as him getting caught in the nets behind our goal in the warm-up.  There was a Laurel & Hardy moment as Sinisa Gracanin and Michael Hills contrived to confuse each other in our box and were fortunate not to be punished for it as the normally reliable Inter Vyagra forward slid in to squeeze the ball just wide of the post.  5-4 would have made for an interesting final ten minutes!

Kyp produced more dizzying twists and turns than the two model aeroplanes that whirred overhead at an altitude that we thought a tad risky.  Those marking him might want to take seasickness pills.  In football there is a saying that twenty goals a season are a mark of quality for strikers.  Quite so, but after witnessing several displays by Kyp this season I would argue that sixty misses a season are an even more important metric.  After all you’ve got to be there to miss them. 

And, most memorably we had twenty-five minutes or so of Mick O’Flynn on the pitch, health restored, pecker up, buzzing here and there, white hair like a beacon of hope and victory over adversity. 

Phil Anthony produced a couple of Irish jokes but I will not encourage him by repeating them here.

In truth we went a bit limp at the end, in attack, and could have twice the number of goals we scored. Generally, the defence held firm., stiffened by the return of Colin Mant and Ian Coles, and the peerless Michael Hills who will score from thirty-five yards eventually, one day.

The après-match was brisk. The showers were hot but not for lingering.  There was no bar to go to.  This is what happens when home games are sacrificed on the altar of competitive matches. And there is no food corner in this report as a result – which explains why it is a bit shorter than usual.

Man of the Match – Lou Hussey, who managed to attract more votes than the scorer of a hat- trick – only fair, Lou would argue, as he curated two of those goals on a Meissen plate for the Paphos Express.