Home >> Results & Fixtures >> Sunday 23rd April 2006
Sunday 23rd April 2006 (Nemesis 6 - GM Monkeys 3)
Writen by Richard Chan
Rematch with Nemesis. Woohoo! Time for revenge. Or something.
Morning
Kin ordered us to meet in Trafford. Like a pleb I didn't really want to be left behind, so I set off in good time. When I arrived at the empty car park, I was beginning to wonder whether today was the actual day of the match. Thankfully Kin later turned up along with all the others, and we had some time for food.
Like proper amateurs, our preparation was not complete until we ate at McDonalds. And that's what we did.
I remember Rob ordering a Double Sausage & Egg McMuffin. I kept saying to him "Oh my God, you're hardcore!", and Rob just kept looking at me funny and said something like "It's only double...". I could only manage a normal.
Whilst eating breakfast, we still discussed team tactics and formations. Our team decided it would be good to try a "3 at the back" tactic. So the basic formation was scribbled on a bit of paper
We were notably without our best player Chris. This wasn't really a big problem as it's only an amateur game. However, what would be a major problem is we only had 10 players in our team. Combinations of injuries and other commitments causing this problem.
On the way to Chester we were following Simon and he wasn't really sure where we were going, I presume opting to rely on a sat-nav thing he had. Eventually we got there after turning around about 3 times because we went past the pitches.
Our "hosts" Nemesis arrived at the pitch after ourselves, somewhat ironically. The weather was really nice and when we walked on the pitch, it was the best pitch we ever saw. It was really flat and didn't have any puddles, and they even had nice corner flags too! Couple this with the sunny weather with a cool breeze and it made you feel it was worthwhile not having a lie in and getting up for this game of football.
The Match
The match started off not so bad. It was the debut of our "new" goalkeeper Andy. At first we were seemed able to hold Nemesis off without feeling too strained. This was with our unorthodox 3 man defense as well!
However we were the first to concede a goal. It was an unlucky wrong footing of one of our defenders inside the box, and the Nemesis player was able to shoot from near the penalty spot. It took an unlucky deflection and it went in. We didn't worry too much as we knew that there wasn't really that much we could do. Fairly soon we conceded another goal, which was a little due to the defensive midfielder (ie me!) falling asleep a bit and not paying attention running after attackers.
Rob, one of the back 3, thought that we were being outnumbered at the back, so we reverted to a traditional back 4.
After regrouping we were able to hold the ball and pressurise them more in their own half. Eventually Simon Ung was able to score one after a bit of scrambling at the Nemesis goal. We were also awarded with a penalty due to a bit of a messup handball by a Nemesis player. KenC stepped up and struck it sweetly.
Unbelievably at this point we were level at 2-2.
Unfortunately we weren't able to hold it, and I think by the end of the first half we were trailing 3-2.
We all complained that our 11th man who we had to borrow from Nemesis, Ming, was totally useless because he kept giving the ball back to Nemesis! We compared it a bit like to playing 12 versus 10. Thankfully we were able to swap to a good Nemesis player Ian in the second half.
In the second half we conceded another 3 goals, however our Ming was able to get it in after Nemesis were unable to clear the ball out of their box.
In hindsight Kin said after the match that even though we were without Chris, our star player, we played better because we weren't necessarily looking for that pass to Chris to create our play.
Despite it not being what he wanted to be, Andy was very good in goal. Made decisive measures when there was any doubt in the box to prevent a goal.
But we still need a proper goalkeeper though...
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