Harbs
03-12-2007, 18:22
I decided to post the match report today for 2 reasons.
1. because im sober today purely because i had no energy at all to go out last night after the toughest game i can ever remember playing in.
2. As mentioned in 1. it was the toughest game i think most of the Eye lads will ever play and i wanted to share as much of it with you as i could.
Arriving at the stadium was a big buzz for the whole team, we have so many youngsters and none of them have ever been near a Stadium let alone played in one. Although we had to spend 10 minutes convincing young Glen it wasnt a prison ground and he can walk out of the grounds at any time... joke for the lads that know him.
Nice facilities nice welcome from the home team staff and flood lights due to a 3 p.m. kick off.
It must have been a very intimidating time for the lads that have never played higher than div 2 because during their warm up Wellingboro did not shut up they were all big lads and very vocal and this continued right up to the wistle to start the game.
For the 1st 15 minutes the home team showed pure dominance and class, they passed and moved like a proffessional team and again with the vocals side to their game the Eye lads must have been thinking how many goals are we going to concede today?!
We managed to weather this and find our feet but we just couldnt get going purely down to the pressure from the midfield and forwards of Wellingboro, although now Wellinboro knew they had a game on their hands. We played as hard as we could and counter attacked as often as possible, and we had the first chance to take the lead when Leon went thru 1 on 1 thanks to a lucky rickershay (?) off their centre back unfortunately he hit it straight at the keeper for a comfortable save.
The home team kept coming and they had their fair share of shots but mainly from distance not troubling Daz our keeper.
Daz was called into action once more with about 10 minutes to go and made a good save down low. Apart from these attempts the defence stayed solid and showed why we had kept 3 consecutive clean sheets in the league.
We all welcomed half time and came off the pitch nearly exhauste after chasing shadows for most of the game.
I would say the percentage in the first half would have been Wellingboro 65% vs 35% Eye.
We were fired up for the second half and came out with a different game plan knowing Wellingboro will try to keep things the same.
As expected they started off real strong good movement clever passing smart build up and hold up plays. The front two were very good and one lad in particular just wouldnt loose the ball.
But now the possesion figures changed and the game started to move to a 50/50 and finlly we found some cracks in their solid image, we passed much better but still worked just as hard to win the ball back when ever we didnt have it.
I wish to emphasise at this point there has been no injuries and the game has been free flowing with just a few fouls here and there.
Still holding strong our defense didnt seem like conceding but we looked even less like scoring due to a well organised back line, but then as we all know stranger things have happened and with 10 minutes to go a great pass from Spence Clarke put Leon thru andwhat a goal to take the lead with he hits a half velloy from 25 yeards that sales over the keeper into the top corner.... just to tell you how much this meant to the lads the whole team chased Leon to the other side of the pitch and an 11 man stack formed with Leon firmly at the bottom HA!
Now was time to keep things tight and we were thru with a massive upset.
minutes took tens of minutes or so it seemed but with only 2 minutes on the clock the aim was the far corner and hold it there.
We managed to get the ball in that very corner and as i came in to offer our young gun Glen some support ony for him to smash the ball into my leg and out for a corner, he was trying to cross it in but we had no one in the box??!! dont ask, i have no answers to that one... i can only assume its youth :-/
Still we held out and every 30 seconds an Eye player asking the ref how long.
eventually the ref says were in injury time.
3 minutes later the whistle still hadnt gone and Welligboro hit the post in this time so it looked like we had scrapped thru.
Stood next to the big centre mid player i spent all game chasing i asked... no i told the ref "SURELY THATS TIME?" The player next to me agreeing we had over shot the mark. So imagine my complete shock when the ref announces "its not over yet boys.
6 minutes later the equaliser went in and with a Chelsea like furious surrounding the ref smiled and shrugged off the protests of imaginary Alex Ferguson Injury time.
We passed the ball forwards to kick off straight after the ball went in and and the ref blew for full time.
The protests continued but the ref was satisfied with his decision to play 6+ minutes of injury time in one of the cleanest games this season!!!
Players practically on their last legs we got straight into injury time and again the whole Wellingboro squad screaming encouragement to each other convincing themselves they were not nearly tired yet and this is where all their shuttles will pay off... all i can say is they were right in a way.
There fitness did show but then as we have been training on a tuesday since the start of the season and the whole squad regularly turning up it was a stalemate in injury times first half!
Unfortunately for us the second half wasnt quite the same and both teams were still pushing for the goal, The home side took the lead and there was just no way back from this. ironically there wasnt a second of injury time played in the 30 inutes extra tim we had yet there were more fouls in these 30 minutes than the previous 90.
Every player came home feeling proud of themselves and there was no one you could call man of the match in this game it was a pure team effort that in my opinion deserved more at the end but just like we took a shock lead game was pulled from our hands by time itself!!
WELL DONE EYE and WELL DONE WELLINGBORO - GREAT GAME.
1. because im sober today purely because i had no energy at all to go out last night after the toughest game i can ever remember playing in.
2. As mentioned in 1. it was the toughest game i think most of the Eye lads will ever play and i wanted to share as much of it with you as i could.
Arriving at the stadium was a big buzz for the whole team, we have so many youngsters and none of them have ever been near a Stadium let alone played in one. Although we had to spend 10 minutes convincing young Glen it wasnt a prison ground and he can walk out of the grounds at any time... joke for the lads that know him.
Nice facilities nice welcome from the home team staff and flood lights due to a 3 p.m. kick off.
It must have been a very intimidating time for the lads that have never played higher than div 2 because during their warm up Wellingboro did not shut up they were all big lads and very vocal and this continued right up to the wistle to start the game.
For the 1st 15 minutes the home team showed pure dominance and class, they passed and moved like a proffessional team and again with the vocals side to their game the Eye lads must have been thinking how many goals are we going to concede today?!
We managed to weather this and find our feet but we just couldnt get going purely down to the pressure from the midfield and forwards of Wellingboro, although now Wellinboro knew they had a game on their hands. We played as hard as we could and counter attacked as often as possible, and we had the first chance to take the lead when Leon went thru 1 on 1 thanks to a lucky rickershay (?) off their centre back unfortunately he hit it straight at the keeper for a comfortable save.
The home team kept coming and they had their fair share of shots but mainly from distance not troubling Daz our keeper.
Daz was called into action once more with about 10 minutes to go and made a good save down low. Apart from these attempts the defence stayed solid and showed why we had kept 3 consecutive clean sheets in the league.
We all welcomed half time and came off the pitch nearly exhauste after chasing shadows for most of the game.
I would say the percentage in the first half would have been Wellingboro 65% vs 35% Eye.
We were fired up for the second half and came out with a different game plan knowing Wellingboro will try to keep things the same.
As expected they started off real strong good movement clever passing smart build up and hold up plays. The front two were very good and one lad in particular just wouldnt loose the ball.
But now the possesion figures changed and the game started to move to a 50/50 and finlly we found some cracks in their solid image, we passed much better but still worked just as hard to win the ball back when ever we didnt have it.
I wish to emphasise at this point there has been no injuries and the game has been free flowing with just a few fouls here and there.
Still holding strong our defense didnt seem like conceding but we looked even less like scoring due to a well organised back line, but then as we all know stranger things have happened and with 10 minutes to go a great pass from Spence Clarke put Leon thru andwhat a goal to take the lead with he hits a half velloy from 25 yeards that sales over the keeper into the top corner.... just to tell you how much this meant to the lads the whole team chased Leon to the other side of the pitch and an 11 man stack formed with Leon firmly at the bottom HA!
Now was time to keep things tight and we were thru with a massive upset.
minutes took tens of minutes or so it seemed but with only 2 minutes on the clock the aim was the far corner and hold it there.
We managed to get the ball in that very corner and as i came in to offer our young gun Glen some support ony for him to smash the ball into my leg and out for a corner, he was trying to cross it in but we had no one in the box??!! dont ask, i have no answers to that one... i can only assume its youth :-/
Still we held out and every 30 seconds an Eye player asking the ref how long.
eventually the ref says were in injury time.
3 minutes later the whistle still hadnt gone and Welligboro hit the post in this time so it looked like we had scrapped thru.
Stood next to the big centre mid player i spent all game chasing i asked... no i told the ref "SURELY THATS TIME?" The player next to me agreeing we had over shot the mark. So imagine my complete shock when the ref announces "its not over yet boys.
6 minutes later the equaliser went in and with a Chelsea like furious surrounding the ref smiled and shrugged off the protests of imaginary Alex Ferguson Injury time.
We passed the ball forwards to kick off straight after the ball went in and and the ref blew for full time.
The protests continued but the ref was satisfied with his decision to play 6+ minutes of injury time in one of the cleanest games this season!!!
Players practically on their last legs we got straight into injury time and again the whole Wellingboro squad screaming encouragement to each other convincing themselves they were not nearly tired yet and this is where all their shuttles will pay off... all i can say is they were right in a way.
There fitness did show but then as we have been training on a tuesday since the start of the season and the whole squad regularly turning up it was a stalemate in injury times first half!
Unfortunately for us the second half wasnt quite the same and both teams were still pushing for the goal, The home side took the lead and there was just no way back from this. ironically there wasnt a second of injury time played in the 30 inutes extra tim we had yet there were more fouls in these 30 minutes than the previous 90.
Every player came home feeling proud of themselves and there was no one you could call man of the match in this game it was a pure team effort that in my opinion deserved more at the end but just like we took a shock lead game was pulled from our hands by time itself!!
WELL DONE EYE and WELL DONE WELLINGBORO - GREAT GAME.