Happy New Year to all the team and followers of Surbiton Lions Football Club. May 2012 be a far better year for the Lions on the pitch and may we all find happiness and prosperity off it.
So much for the seasonal cheer, now for the last match report of 2011, which is a little late due to problems with the website and a lack of enthusiasm for all things football after getting chewed up by Cheam Machine.
We played these guys in the first round of this competition last season and they knocked us out then by the same margin of three goals. No doubt that they’re a good team, but we made things all too easy with defensive lapses for some of their goals.
Line up:
Paige (GK)
Dale (RB), Simon (CB), Phil (CB), Julian R (LB)
Ollie (CM), JP (CM), Lee M (CM)
Rich (RF), Scott (CF), Kev (LF)
For the third game in a row, we opened the scoring within the first five minutes (maybe if we stop doing that, we'll actually win a game...). I passed the ball down the wing to Scott who laid it off to Rich. He surged past the defence and crashed a rising drive off the underside of the goal to get us off to a great start. Yet again though, we failed to keep the lead and we were soon pulled back to level terms.
They put a ball over the top and their mouthy main striker found himself all alone in the penalty area as our defence (i.e. me) had failed to push to get him offside. He had time to pick his spot and slot one past Paige for their equaliser.
They then went ahead when the same player managed to turn Simon inside out and score with a low drive. We responded with a well worked goal that owed a lot to Ollie chasing down a ball to their byline, keeping it in play then having the presence of mind to get it across the box. Not sure if one of our guys knocked it on to Scott (which is why Ollie is getting the assist), but there’s no doubt about the finish from Scott – a lovely sidefoot shot under the onrushing keeper.
At 2-2 we were still looking to be in contention, but then we conceded a couple of goals from outside the area, the first of which Paige got hands to as it bounced in font of him, the second a screamer into the top corner in the dying seconds of the half.
The scoreline was a bit harsh on us, but we were still well in it. The second half was tight with plenty of chances at either end and increasingly fractious as the game went on. Lee put the ball over the bar from just outside the 6 yard area and had another shot go narrowly wide. Paige had to make some decent saves to keep us in it. We conceded another goal a ball over the top again found one of their strikers onside and he put the chance away. We pulled one back with Lee when he managed to shoot home from a short distance out after the oppo had failed to clear the lines. Ollie had a cross-shot headed off the line. Unlike the week before when our heads went down in the second half, we battled for everything throughout the game, exemplified by Simon, who seemed to have gone to war with a couple of their strikers given the ferocity of the challenges he was making and receiving.
In the end they managed to get a carbon copy of their earlier second half goal and for second week running we crashed out of a cup having conceded 6 goals. Incredibly, we’ve conceded almost as many goals in those two cup matches as we have done in 6 games in the league.
So that’s that for 2011 and rather than reflect on our awful run of form at the beginning of that year and the less than cheery December, let’s look forward to 2012 with hope and a determination to get the best out of the second half of this season.
