The Alex rocked up to Wandsworth common in a buoyant mood off the back of one of the biggest results in Clapham Alex history. Pre-game conversations focused mainly on the heroic performance we put in when beating & ending the Scum’s… sorry I mean Project Clapham’s 3 year unbeaten league run.
The Alex was looking to keep up their unbeaten record on Wandsworth Common which over the past few weeks has turned into quite a fortress. Riley delivered his usual upbeat team talk but really had to try and keep our feet on the ground after the project Clapham victory. Riley made it clear to us that we needed to forget about how we played against project Clapham “we did just that!”
The game started very slowly with the Eagles dominating the early possession, the Alex took a while to get going but after the first 20 minutes we started to get a foot hold in the game. A few intricate passes between Alcott & Beef found Stroudy in some space who then delivered a Beckham-ess like pass over the top for the club’s all-time top goal scorer Mantel to chase, Mantel brought the ball down exquisitely but before he had the chance to unleash a rasping strike at goal he was blatantly shoved to the floor…Penalty!! There was uproar from the opposing fans that believed Mantel went down for to easily. Woody calmly stepped up and slotted it home. 1-0 Alex
We thought the goal would open the flood gates and drive us forward but it didn’t quite have the impact we thought it would. Instead we over committed ourselves and got hit on the counter attack, with the Eagle’s striker bearing down on goal Gandy rushed out and made an excellent save turning the ball around the post. The Eagles suddenly had their tails up and started to dominate the last 10 minutes of the half. With a couple of minutes to go before half time the eagles were put through on goal but once again they met a on rushing wall and Gandy once again kept the score at 1-0.
Neither side really came out of the changing rooms at half-time, the game became very scrappy & disjointed. The Alex failed to create any real clear cut chances and the eagles resorted to the long ball as they searched for that sweetox equaliser. Their chance arrived with two minutes left on the clock, a corner wasn’t cleared properly and dropped to an Eagles player who hit a rasping volley from 10yrds which was tipped on to the bar by a full stretch Gandy who watched the ball come down off the bar and bounce a foot behind the line before coming back out into play. The Eagles celebrated what should have been an equaliser however the Ref was poorly placed and not in a position to award the goal (shades of Man U vs. Spurs). The ref blew for full time much to the Alex’s delight who progressed into the knockout stages of the cup (well at the time we were).
During the post-match interview the Eagles manager said that Mantel’s dive was up there with Luis Suarez. He also refused to pay the ref as he had a c**p game. The League has since taken action against the Eagles manager who faces a lengthy touchline ban & a hefty fine.
As we seem to be introducing quotes into the reports I found this beauty that I feel best describes our game, it’s from QPR's manager Ian Holloway on his side's win over Chesterfield.
'To put it in gentleman's terms if you've been out for a night and you're looking for a young lady and you pull one, some weeks they're good looking and some weeks they're not the best.
'Our performance today would have been not the best looking bird but at least we got her in the taxi. She weren't the best looking lady we ended up taking home but she was very pleasant and very nice, so thanks very much, let's have a coffee.’
Stroudy was this match report Long enough??lol
