Match Report

FOBG Squad: Tom Girling, Michael Hills, Phil Anthony, Colin Mant, Waine Hetherington, George Kleanthous, Joe Skinner, Simon Thomas, Jay Hardy, Gabriel Cozma, Dave Morgan, John Redmond, Chisa Mkala.

Referee: Their referee – 9/10, had a good game, but won’t be on Tom’s Xmas card list.

Kit sponsor: The Dog and Duck, Outwood.

Manager:  George Kleanthous.

Interim Chief Football Correspondent:  Phil Anthony.

Chief Impact Officer:  Phil Anthony.

Getting a team out was quite challenging for George & Phil this week. We only had 11 players on the Friday and it wasn’t until early Sunday morning that we had 14 confirmed. A few injuries have hampered us recently and with only 17 regulars, we may need to bump this up.

Last year’s encounters with Old Tamps went our way (Won both , 4-2 & 4-1) and this one was much the same, but we did make hard work of it. On a boggy pitch, George re-emphasised our strategy – play out from the back, work the ball forward, but if there is a press from the oppo, then hit the channels. There are not many teams that will press us, but Old Tamps did. They outnumbered us in midfield, which we tried to fix by going 3 at the back and 5 across the middle, but their defence, midfield and strikers worked very well together. Their main striker was a thorn in our side throughout the game and if it wasn’t for some cleaver defence covering by Hillsy, he would have been through on goal several times and punished us.

The highlight of the match must surely be the referee penalising Tom for picking up a back pass. I quote from the rule book:

The back-pass rule states that a goalkeeper is forbidden to handle the ball when passed to them by a team-mate, according to Law 12, Section 2 of the Laws of the Game. Goalkeepers are allowed to pick up balls in their penalty area, but they are not allowed to do so when the ball has been purposely kicked to them by a team-mate. Instead, goalkeepers are to play the balls with their feet. Players are allowed to head the ball back to their goalkeeper, or pass the ball back with any body part other than their foot.

Now, to appreciate this, you would have to be there really, because Hillsy clearly kicked the ball backwards, over his head to get it away from their striker, towards our goal and then Tom picked it up. The referee gave an indirect free kick (the majority of us thought this was probably the right decision). Tom came running out of his goal shouting abuse to the referee,’ losing his cap and stumbling to the ground in protest. We’ve never seen him in this state of mind before and it’s quite worrying (maybe he’s spending too much time with Hillsy). I’ll be recommending an anger management course shortly which the club might fund.

Anyway, from the free kick, we piled everyone back into our area and luckily for us, they put their attempt wide; from the touchline I could still see Tom fuming ….

Back to the game and this was one of those that could have gone either way. They scored first from inside our area, where we should really have cleared our lines quicker. Kyp got us level with a lovely finish and Jay got us our second before half time. Our third came in the second half from a lovely Kyp dribble into their area where he was hacked down. George sweeping the penalty away with aplomb.

George has it on record that he has never ever given away a penalty in his football career (over 45 years), but last week was his first and this week his second, apparently for sliding in on their striker and taking him out; but according to George, their striker was falling anyway. Justice was served as they hit the outside of the post; although Tom (in his own words) got a fingertip to it and pushed it on to the post.

Man-of-the-match: Votes were very close this week and it did take a while for the votes to come in, especially as the opposition provided us with some lovely hot foot (Sausages, Roast Potatoes etc) while MOM votes were being taken.  Disco Dave was leading with 5 votes for his outstanding midfield work, but unfortunately was over taken by 1 on the very last vote, given to Hillsy for a magnificent centre half performance.