Two wins in a row for the mighty Vale as they snatched victory this morning with a 5-4 win over Withymoor North. Frankly the Vale were pretty poor for large parts of the game, but managed to grind out a win, with easily the best goal of this season (and for many a season in fact!) as Sammy scored a stunning freekick with the last kick of the game.
Vale lined up with Bomo, Scottie, Conor, Ed, Steeley, Kie, Dave D, Dan, Gaylo, Aaron and Sam. Sean, Shane and Nick on the bench. The pitch was pretty poor, long wet grass meaning the ball barely travelled, and a lot of Vale passes early on were coming up well short of their targets. Though to blame the pitch would be a cop out as the entire side looked under par for the first 30 minutes. Withymoor kept the ball better, and looked to play the ball into their quick wingers who were having a lot of success early on against our fullbacks. Though after a shaky start Scottie at leftback went on to have an excellent game, once he got over the start. Conor on the other side was up against a particularly quick and tricky winger, but stuck to his task before he came off with a knock at half time. The Withymoor pressure finally told as they took the lead. I can't remember exactly how they scored it, but I'm guessing we didn't cover ourselves with glory on that one!
We equalised fairly quickly afterwards as the ball was played into Sam (no-one could remember who passed it though), he turned and began to run toward goal....the Withymoor defender shouted "Leave him!" and their defence did as Sam ran through and placed it past the keeper. Vale then had chances to take the lead as Aaron missed a couple of one-on-ones, and a few other players had efforts. We were back behind not too long after though, as one of teh shorter players in the opposition side got a free header at a corner and nodded it past Bomo. Halftime and we were deservedly 2-1 down.
A reshuffle at halftime saw Sean in the middle of the park and Dave D moving to rightback. Vale got a goal back fairly early in the second half as Kie had a shot, which saw the ball rebound to Dan W on the edge of the box, he shifted it past one defender before hitting a frankly awful shot that somehow scuffed its way into the bottom corner of the goal. Withymoor scored again, though I can't remember it all (so it was probably my fault!). Sam got the next goal as he got the ball off Kie and hit a shot that was only marginally better than Dan's and saw the keeper let it through his hands and into the goal.
The next goal will go down in the annals of history as Kie whipped a corner in and Gaylo (yes Gaylo!) boomed a powerful header past the keeper and the defender on the line and into the net. Shocking! With the Vale finally in the lead in the match, the boys had their best 15 minute spell as they kept the ball better, threw themselves into tackles and frustrated Withymoor. As the clock ran down, it looked like the Vale were going to run out 4-3 winners...and then in the 90th minute...
With Vale in possession, the ball was played out to the righthand side, too many Vale players moved forward and as the ball was lost Withymoor played a long pass that left Ed and Dave D frantically chasing back to try and stop the nippy striker who had picked up the long ball...Bomo came out and clattered him but not before he had slid the ball past him and it gently rolled into the net. 4-4 in the final minute. Bugger.
Sam kicked off and just ran forward, as he got 25 yards out the Withymoor defender wiped him out and the ref gave a freekick. Sam stepped up and curled the ball quite brilliantly into the top corner of the goal. It was quite simply a stunning freekick that even the best keeper in the world would have struggled to get close to. That turned out to be the last kick of the game as the ref blew the final whistle as the Vale boys were celebrating.
This was a horrible yet brilliant win for the Vale as they played poorly yet managed to drag themselves to victory. Hard to say we fully deserved it, but fuck it! The positive is, if we can win playing like this, imagine what we could do when we actually get the ball down and pass it to each other!
