DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

4 April 2004 Morden & District League Division 8 at 'The Triangle' (Lower Morden Lane)

Nuwood 4(4)
10,19,21,36
DCFC 0(0)

With just 2 games to go, there isn't an awful lot to play for, pride is the main thing. We were already relegated and almost certainly destined for the bottom position in the division.

Nuwood would have been quite right to assume that our opening 30 odd minutes to this game showed that we had no desire to give it a go. In what was generally a fair performance, we were bad for the opening minutes of this game.

Earlier in the season we had a real problem defending corners, as the season has progressed we've thankfully seen that problem diminish into no more than a distant memory, although that little nasty sadly reared it's ugly head in this game. Virtually all of Nuwood's goals came from admittedly well taken corners, but virtually no attempt from us to deal with them. With just over half an hour gone, things looked desperate, 4-0 down against the division 8 champions - surely we were on the road to a hiding.

Thankfully it remained 4-0. We can take great credit for actually generally playing quite well after this point. Source of inspiration, look no further than Chara in goal. Nuwood got cocky when they were awarded a penalty, which he conceded, but he kept up that long traditional run of being a great penalty stopper, as he pulled off a decent stop from the Nuwood keeper (hence the bit about being cocky). Sadly the save was to no avail as soon after, Nuwood scored from a corner.

Dan was also instrumental in us keeping the score down as he was solid at the back.

In the second half, Chara seemed to have his own show, as he was showing us a display of fine stops, all from different kinds of efforts. Inspector Gadget in goal, he made things looked sickingly effortless, as those arms came from nowhere to pluck the ball virtually out of the top corner. If only we could have him in our squad on a regular basis.

As good as Nuwood may be, we still had moments when we were able to play the ball in midfield. We failed to create many chances though. Leroy was put through with only the goalkeeper to beat, but couldn't quite squeeze the ball between the posts. There should have been other chances in the first half, but everyone seemed to shy to shoot. It wouldn't be unfair to say that our first real chance came from Richie in the 89th minute, as a mini run ended in him having a decent attempt, although well saved by the keeper.

Bearing in mind that Nuwood are averaging something like 5 goals a game, we've done no worse than the average team against them.

It is all about next season and the one positive thing that we have got is a good team spirit. Here we are with nothing to play for and yet we still managed to put out a squad of 14. You can't help but ask yourself how much better it would be if we were in the middle of the table or higher.

The likely hood is we'll be in division 9 next season. Let's hope we can build on the basis of what we have cemented this season and push on and make 2004/2005 a good one, in what will see 10 years of DFC / DCFC.