On a wet but sunny Sunday morning, the Clems made their way over to Rawreth for their first round tie against Armada Sports. With the Gaffer Dale raring to go after his poor half time team talk and poor performance the previous Sunday, he made it clear before the game his intentions for a good cup run this season! The starting line up on the day for the Clems was; A Dale (GK), D. Ince (RB), T Wright (CB), A Stammers (CB), M Coleman (LB), J Wright (DM), P Ansell (M), R Ince (M), J Gosling (LF), J Dale (RF), P Parkhurst (CF), leaving J Hopson and T Hawthorne on the subs bench.
With the pre match talks completed and the game commencing, the Clems struggled to keep hold of the ball on a wet and zippy surface. And within ten minutes the Clems found themselves 1-0 down after a poor decision by Stammers attempting to the play their forward offside, allowing their forward to slot the ball past a helpless Dale. This kick started a fight back, with Ansell, Ince and J Wright dominating the possession in the middle of the park, providing quality balls through to J Dale, Goso and Parky. After some slick passing from the back four, Coleman provided a killer ball down the left hand side, and after a deathly touch from Goso, taking two defenders out of the game, calmly slotted the ball into the bottom corner. Post-game discussions described this as the goal of the game, and rightly so. With possession at around 85% in favour of Boreham, goal number two closely followed. The ball was passed back to Dale in goal, with no other option but to knock it long, found the top of Parkys head, for him only to knock the ball on for J Dale to beat the office trap and slot the ball near post for a deserved lead in the game. Five minutes before the half time whistle, the game was sealed with Sir Tom nailing a 25 yarder into the bottom left hand corner, leaving the keeper with no chance.
With Parks clearly feeling the effects of 90 minutes the previous day, he decided enough was enough at half time, which allowed Hopson a chance at breaking his goal drought since joining the Clems half way through last season. The 2nd half got underway, and was pretty much the J Wright show. Breaking the play up in the middle of the park, and distributing the simple balls, exactly what was asked of him by Gaffer Dale at the start of the season. Chance after chance arose and no one seemed to be able to trouble the Armada keeper. Both full backs were seeing loads of the ball, due to a midfield massacre from Ince, Ansell and Wright. Goal number four was a well worked goal, with Wright picking the ball up in the middle of the park, and Ansell making a diagonal run, J Wright slotted through an inch perfect pass which Ansell to slot the ball home for 4-1. Towards the end of the game, Armada picked up the ball on a number of occasions, and attempted to break through the Boreham defence. However Sir Tom, Stammers and A Dale alert to the danger, picked up the pieces and some great distribution from Dale to Incey, allowed Ince to swing the ball over for an Armada OG, a fine finish from the Armada Centre back. Final whistle went and the opposing manager was glad to hear it as the Clems were punishing Armada due to them losing a player to injury.
Post-game discussions were of a high note. Some quality football played on a fresh Sunday morning. Gaffer Dale had this to say in his post-match interview; “I was really pleased with how everyone reacted to the poor performance that took place last Sunday. I take full responsibility for the game and the decisions I made, and I was keen to ensure that it did not spool over to this game. Everyone showed great character, the communication around the whole park was great and the football we played even caught the eye of onlookers from other games, with one guy stating it was the best football he had ever seen on a Sunday. This was a great comment to rack up as it has taken a long two years to get the team playing this way, but I finally have a great squad and I am looking forward for the potential of the rest of the season.”
