The Quiche's fixture on Saturday was against Mangere. This is the team who failed to turn up earlier in the season, and with 5 minutes to kickoff with still no sign of them, the capacity crowd was beginning to express concerns about getting a refund on their admission charges. Then, lo and behold, a 7 seater van pulled up, and out poured 15 Mangere players plus a mountain of gear. Game on !
Mangere are bottom of the League, without a win to their name, and with a goal deficit of over 40, so the Quiche supporters were hoping for a few goals to celebrate. In the early stages this looked a distinct possibility, with the Quiche mounting a series of attacks, creating several chances, without however producing a goal. Then a clear handball in the area enabled MP to step up and open the scoring from the spot.
Despite the blatant handball, Mangere protested vigorously to referee Neil, and one player with an obvious death-wish continued with a verbal assault. He was clearly unaware that the last player to challenge Neil in this fashion, some 3 years ago, is still having difficulty in walking a straight line. Fortunately this occasion did not get beyond verbal fisticuffs.
The goal, rather than spurring them on, seemed to demotivate the Quiche, and they allowed the opposition back into the game, so much so that a difficult swirling ball in the Quiche area struck a defender's arm, and Mangere equalised from the resultant penalty. 1-1 at half-time.
At this point it is worth mention that the game was played throughout in a strong swirling wind, on a pitch bordered on two sides by steep banks leading to busy roads. As a consequence, the ball spent more time bouncing down towards Glen Innes shopping centre than actually on the park. These conditions clearly suited Mangere, whose idea of football was to boot the ball as hard and as high as possible towards the opposition goal. Quiche, on the other hand, found it difficult to adapt their normal, close-passing, controlled game to the situation.
With constant and lengthy interruptions while the ball was returned, the game lost all sense of rhythm and purpose, and although the Quiche came back strongly in the last 15 minutes, and had several more good chances, no goals materialised.
This was perhaps understandable, since with MP suffering from a recurrent injury, with Mattie Hyde gallivanting in Brazil, and with Harry struck down by a mystery illness, the Quiche goalscoring options were severely depleted.
Given the lack of action on the pitch, the large crowd was entertained by Jordi practicing his considerable footballing skills with the team waiting to play after the Quiche game. Comments were heard from the touchline that Jordi had superior ball control to a number of players on the field - unkind perhaps but not totally inaccurate.
The high spot of the second half from a spectator's viewpoint was Tom giving an accurate impression of a steamroller on an unfortunate defender foolish enough to tackle him head-on.
Man of the Match was Phil, who was one of the few players to adapt well to the conditions.
One worrying aspect for the team is that one of the Quiche central defenders was spotted after the game wearing elasticated trousers - something normally confined to those of us aged 70 and over.
This result has put a large dent in the Quiche's aspirations for the season, and with games coming up against all the stronger teams in the Division, performances will have to improve considerably if a top 3 finish is to be achieved.
Next week's fixture is away to Mount Albert-Ponsonby, with a 2-45 kickoff. Go the Quiche !!!
