| Match Report
On a beautiful Sunday in spring the Bilbao rabble turned up at the Meadhurst complex ready for possibly their penultimate game of the 2003-2004 season. Today's opponents were the Premier League side Gorgeous Brothers. This was going to be an interesting and unpredictable game, firstly were the Gorgeous brothers actually that good looking. Secondly what with the "all over the shot" nature of the Premier league results, and the even more up & down performances of the Bilbao Army so far in the FA Cup, this along with the heat and hard pitch meant predicting a result would prove near impossible.
All we knew was that we had to beat the GB's in order to still have qualification in our own hands going into the last match the following Wednesday. The team selection which initially started off with the bare bones grew into a strong side as Wilf was coaxed out of watching Spurs hand the title to Arsenal and Eddy declared himself available at the last possible moment. We started off with the 3-5-2 formation with Jenks and Steve returning from suspension to take their normal positions, while Calver made a return to the defence alongside Wilf & Eddy. Ross was this weeks lucky dip choice for goalkeeper.
The game kicked off at a busy pace considering the heat, and Bilbao took the early initiative, despite their their two quick strikers looking lively, the Bilbao midfield and defence we winning the majority of the first and second balls allowing us the early attacks most of these came down our right wing with Phil and our central striker Jenks who seems to spend all his time playing right wing !!!. Jenks long spinning throws were gaining us possession and creating pressure inside their box, and the keeper was having allsorts of problems taking them under pressure, spilling two in the early stages. For the first 15-20 minutes we were in control with their play being mostly on the counter-attack when they did find some space on the wings the crosses weren't good enough and were mopped up by Eddy, Wilf & Calver who were forming an impressive & commanding defensive unit. for the remainder of the first half we chased that elusive break-through but it didn't look like coming Denny was just short on a couple of through balls and Paul made a fine run cutting in from his left flank beating two or three players but his shot from the edge of the box drifted wide.
As the first half entered it's closing stages Jenks tossed another long throw from the right in and Skippy went up to challenge for the flick on unfortunately for Neil he was flattened by both a defender and the on-rushing goal keep, however the impact of running into Neil resulted in butter fingers dropping the ball at Steve's feet who with a finish Rich 'Punter Sutton who have been proud of stabbed the ball in to the back of the net from 12 yards or so. Neil then stole Steve's thunder by making everyone check on his health rather than celebrate. Once Neil was up and running again we managed to close out a close & competitive half that we deserved to win.
After some glowing compliments from Keith at half time we took to the field hopeful that we had enough energy to keep the frantic pace going and to try and close out the game. They seemed to have made a tactical change by bringing their bigger striker back in to midfield to compete with Ben, Neil and Steve who had been winning 90% of the aerial challenges. As the game re-started it was still close and competitive but GB's seemed to have more of penetration and to have lifted their game. The main source of the problems was their striker who was proving to be a bit of a Kanu, he was either skinning us completely or completely messing it up, but when he got it right he was dangerous and giving Calver a real hard time. One of his run's resulted in us conceding a corner, which with us and our lack of height and organisation is always a problem. This corner was then dispatched into our net by a towering hearer from around 10 yards that Ross could do nothing about. Around this time Rich was brought on to the Left flank in place of Paul, to help solidify things.
Despite this setback the boys from Bilbao were still confident the game was theirs, this feeling was then shattered 10 mins later when a counter attack led to their tricky striker again getting in on goal, the chasing Eddy had to choose whether to bring him down or not, he elected to save himself a possible Red card. The forwards strike was then slightly miss hit past Ross to give the GB's a rather flattering 2-1 advantage. But we refused to buckle or melt in the heat and began our comeback, Denny lashed and ambitious and unlucky strike wide from about 25 yards out from the left and a curler from the other side from Jenks was then tipped over. We started to win a string of free-kicks, corners and throws. From one of these corners Skippy led by example by getting round the back of their defence and without getting flattened this time headed nicely in at the back Stick. this goal was certainly deserved and took Neil to a very respectable 5 goals this season.
From here until the final whistle it was all Bilbao, well us and the Ref. This Referee was well known to us for being a Muppet, and spent the entire match stopping and starting the game for no reason, while refusing to change his clashing top and trying to book people for sarcasm, Steve (obviously) nearly got booked for smiling at him ???, both teams gladly agreed he should be paid his £20 not to referee another game ever. Anyway back to the match. We were in control looking stronger and fitter than GB's after the goal and looked capable of winning it and we should have done when Denny went on run that took him into the box past the keeper with just a defender on the line to beat then he lost his footing and despite a desperate scramble on the ground the chance was gone.
The game finished 2-2, and was an entertaining struggle, Keith and our supporters reckoned it was one of our best performances of the season and must be a first in that notorious goal dodgers Steve & Neil both scored in the same game. However despite the plaudits the result meant we could no longer qualify for the semi-finals. So the last match of the season will be against the Div 2 side Feltham, hopefully this will be a nice convincing win for us and the end the season on a high. I'll give this weeks man of the match to Neil Calver, who had a strong game after returning to defence. he marked their most dangerous striker and stuck to his task well.
|