GU12 03-Feb-07: Wythenshawe Town 4-4 Oswald Rd (HT 2-1)

A ding dong game with thrills and spills entertained the punters on a cold and foggy winters morning. Four times Wythenshawe posed the question, and four times Oswald gave the answer. Wythenshawe probably deserved the draw but only after surviving a sustained period of Oswald pressure in the second half. In a good test of character Oswald came back four times and ended the game looking for the winner. It was a game where we could have given up after seeing the results of our hard work cancelled out every time we achieved something.

We reverted to a more stable and traditional line up with Sophie A. Katie and Ruq taking up the striking role. Jazz is now looking far more comfortable and confident in her role and Zoe added to the defence time after time by winning challenges and coolly played the ball forward to enable us to launch attacks. This hard work earned her player of the day. Becks looked confident and made a goal with a spectacular full length kick. Sophie P. held the defence when she subbed on. Tara played a flexible role both defence and attack giving the strikers a rest occasionally.

The game swung too and fro with Wythenshawe taking the lead four times and Oswald pegging them back each time. Both Wythenshawe and The Os scored good goals and the Os at last showed they can pass the ball around to create the space to score from. The end of the game was dramatic when Oswald piled on the pressure at 3-3 but Wythenshawe scored from a rare counter attack. We thought we had lost it but Sophie A Slotted home goal number 24 for her to give the game a fair result. Great entertainment !

Mike

After the game, Ruqayyah said that this was one of Oswald Rd’s best ever matches! Certainly we made a hatful of chances and moved the ball about extremely well at times – but I think we’ll be playing even better in the future so that we won’t look back on this as one of our best games but as one of the games when we started to move up to another level.

We’re starting to string together passing movements and have a much better idea of position – which we’ll definitely need when we move to the larger pitches next season. We’re still not moving smoothly into defence when we lose the ball – the forwards and midfield still tend to stop and watch defence – but once we wake up we’re much more solid at the back.

Anyway, we started, as usual, a bit slow and Wythenshawe scored after 5 minutes with a hard shot clipping the near post and going into goal – we hadn’t closed down the attacker fast enough and allowed her time to shoot, 1-0. We then got ourselves together and played the ball around well, mounting a series of attacks but kept missing the goal. Finally Ruqayyah put the ball in towards goal again after another attack seemed to have failed and Katie whacked it into goal, 1-1. We had a very good spell then but their goal led a charmed life as we kept missing the final ball into goal, either hitting it wide or walking the ball into the goalkeeper’s hands. They had a revival and a quick attack from them led to another goal on 23 minutes – they had a good tactic of letting their very good number 11 hit the ball from the back up to their two forwards who stayed in out half – so we ended the half 2-1 down. Our defence was getting much better and looked quite solid with Zoe, Jazz and SophieP mopping up most things between them and Ruqayyah falling back to help when needed. Zoe and Jazz also looked very good coming forward with the ball as wing backs leaving SophieP to mind the shop as a very dependable centre or right back.

The second half started much better with fast passing and running – and we scored after only 1 minute! Becks kicked the ball from the goal, route 1, all the way to the other half to Tara who controlled the ball well and passed it to SophieA who went past a defender and placed the ball into the net, 2-2. We then had another period of sustained pressure on Wythenshawe which forced their no 11 to the back to break up our attacks, and this meant their attack was a lot less threatening. She couldn’t break up all our attacks (even though we kept passing the ball close to her and she was very very fast to the ball) and finally on one of our many corners 8 minutes into the half, Katie stayed back near the half way line, and when Tara kicked the ball from the corner out towards her, Katie ran in and whacked the ball past all the defenders straight into goal. The was first time the Oswald Rd speciality corner had worked so well for us! 2-3 to us, and we were now looking for a win!

Again, we kept missing easy chances and they got more confident and started playing better. The no 11 started pushing forward again as our midfield drifted forward, and left the defence outnumbered a few times. One of these attacks bore fruit eventually and they scored on 15 minutes after turning our defence. 3-3 and they were on the up! We still had a lot of attacks but kept missing the goal and even Ruq missed a chance on the one occasion she was passed the ball. We had half settled for a draw but were still pushing people up front when they again launched a fast attack. Becks stopped the ball and then grabbed it on the line before a blue shirt got to it. Their supporters were convinced it had gone over (no, they weren’t in line) but we assumed it hadn’t from the reaction of the blue shirts who had still been trying to get the ball over the line, and the ref (their manager) agreed with us after a moments thought. Phew, a close one! Not that it mattered much because we didn’t pull our socks up and they scored from the very next attack they launched – in the 29^th minute it became 4-3.

And now we were tearing our hair out on the sidelines – we didn’t deserve this! The minutes ticked away. We tried attack after attack, their defence blocked everything, and every time they got the ball we were worried. SophieA finally got away from their no 11 and hit a power drive to the top of the net – their goalie saved it brilliantly! Aargh! “One minute left” came the call from their timekeeper … Another attack was blocked. “30 seconds” came the call. Surely we went over the 30 seconds? Ruq got the ball back from their midfield and passed to SophieA who smacked it past the defenders and goalie into the net! 4-4 in the last minute! The ref blew the whistle 10 seconds into the restart. We weren’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed – and neither did Wythenshawe – this was a classic end-to-end game.

Kamal

Team: SophieA, Jazz, Tara, Ruqayyah, Zoë, SophieP, Katie, Rebecca
Goals (& Assists): 1^st half – Katie (Ruq);
2^nd half – SofiA (Tara), Katie (Tara), SofiA (Ruq)
Opposition’s Player of the Match: SophieA
Managers’ Player of the Match: Zoe