On a snowy day when nobody else seemed brave (stupid) enough to play Sunday football, a depleted Lions squad put up a valiant effort against Division 1 high-flyers Ewell Athletic, but were ultimately eliminated from this season's County Cup.
After a dusting of snow overnight and light but incessant rain through the morning, it was touch and go as to whether or not to call the game off. With no word from the Elmbridge groundsman, it was down to the teams as to whether to go ahead. Ewell Athletic were keen to get it out of the way because of backlog of games: we weren't so keen because of the potential damage to our home pitch and we had players dropping out on the day to leave us with a bare 11. Some of the Lions players also got a bit excited (intimidated?) at the prospect of having to play against Tubes from Soccer AM (never heard of him but apparently he's "mustard"). Against our better judgement we went ahead in the freezing cold rain, which turned to snow as the game progressed.
For all that though, we almost got off to a fantastic start. We did the early pressing and Nick S put in a searching cross that turned into a goalbound shot that the keeper had to palm away from underneath his crossbar. That was in the first couple of minutes. By the end of the next couple of minutes, we were a goal down.
Their energetic number 7, got away from his marker on our right and cut inside to poke a shot through our keeper's legs. Awful goal to concede and to add injury to insult, our keeper had to limp off with a recurrence of the thigh injury from the previous week after only two goal kicks. Fortunately Muss had turned up by then, so he came on and Lewis, who had showed some skills and class in right midfield, dropped into goal, albeit mindful of a broken knuckle.
He didn't have to throw himself around too much, because Ewell didn't get another sight of goal for the rest of the half. The defensive trio of Si, Boan and Mike did a pretty good job of containing the Div 1 side, despite their undoubted attacking talent. At the same time though, we couldn't exert any real pressure ourselves at the other end. We didn't have a single chance of note after going behind, despite holding our own in all other areas of the pitch.
A quick turnaround prompted by the freezing sleet at half time and it was pretty much more of the same for the second half. Ewell do love to pass the ball around, with even their goalie getting in on the act. They weren't actually getting through us that much, but they always seemed to be in control of the game. Their defensive line was pretty robust too as every potential opening seemed to get halted by the lino's flag.
After various shots that went nowhere near the goal, Ewell got their second through a bit of a mix up. An attacker got through and crossed in a low ball that Lewis seemed to have covered. Mussa was coming in with another Ewell player and as all three converged, the ball somehow went right through everybody to another attacker who poked it home from all of half a yard out. Mussa complained strongly that he'd been pushed in the back by the guy he was marking but the ref just wasn't interested. Another bad goal to concede, but at least it was definitely a goal. It got worse with the next one, because it wasn't even a goal.
An attacker fizzed a shot in from range that left Lewis a spectator and hit the underside of the bar bounced up from the ground and was gathered by Lewis. It happened so quickly that as a lino, the only thing I was certain of was that it hit the line but Lewis and I were both seriously doubtful that the whole ball ever crossed over the line. Unfortunately, due to the missing D brackets on the goal, the net hangs straight down and as this visibly moved with the impact of the ball, the goal was given despite our protests. Cheers Elmbridge...
We pulled one back through Rob getting on the end of a free-kick by Lewis and finding the far corner from close range. We had another good chance from our best move of the match, which saw a number of neat one-touch passes in the build up before Harry hit a first time shot that shaved the top of the bar.
Lewis had to make an excellent one-handed stop but the Cup exit was sealed in spectacular fashion when their no. 7 found himself free on the edge of the area on our right. A lobbed ball came over that he dispatched with a curling, looping volley into the far corner.
Not a great game and a rubbish way to bow out of the cup. As if that wasn't misery enough, we then spent about five minutes in the cold rain trying to get into our changing room after the door seemed to be locked shut with half the team's gear inside. Some not so gentle persuasion was needed to finally prise it open.
Putting all that behind us though, we're still in a good position in the League and we have another cup to look forward to in January. The end of the year is just around the corner: let's finish it on the pitch on a high with Royal Oak next week.
