DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

10 October 2004 Morden & District League Division 9 at DUNDONALD ROAD REC

DCFC 4 (1)
Damion 28 71, Dan L 59, Leo 65
Croydon Spartak 2 (1)
25, 87

Joe's getting stronger with every game

Of all the games in recent times, there aren't many which have tested the emotions as much as this one. The joy of watching your team completely dominate the game in midfield, almost taking the Michael at times and then miss chance after chance, left you feeling satisfied that everyone is playing so well together, but anxious, knowing that it would only take 1, maybe 2 chances from Croydon and all the hard work would be worth nothing.

It's something we've seen before, how many times do we take a stranglehold on the game, only to do everything apart from score, well it's happened before, it happened today and no doubt it will happen again. We saw Matty, Damion, Daniel L, Dan M, Gary and more all miss chances, some were easier than others obviously, Croydon probably couldn't believe how a team that's won about 4 games in the last year, could dominate so much, well, maybe they could understand our predicament, when from only their second chance of the game, we were a goal behind, as the Croygas forward lobbed stand-in keeper Tom. It was unbelievable, how do we get ourselves in these situations, you couldn't help but shake your head in disbelief, here we were playing our best football for ages and yet we were a goal down. Damion then brought out other emotions as he equalised for us 3 minutes later with a good run and a decent finished, everyone cheered, like I say, a real test of the emotions. We continued to play well, still generally in control of the game, but very slowly Spartak were starting to find their feet.

At half time you could look at this two ways, either we've missed our chance, that's it, or if we keep playing this well for the next 45, we really should nick this. Well luckily enough we kept playing almost as well as we did in the first half, the wind was slightly against us now, but we kept digging away.

This was to be a game full of cracking goals and none more so than the next one, after we won a free kick on the edge of the box, Dan M attempted to score direct from the kick, his effort deflected off the wall, Dan Lawless didn't hesitate as he hit a cracking volley, directly from it, into the bottom corner. What a belter, this was exactly what we needed and deserved.

At the change of halves, Tom came out of goal to make way for Adrian. The expectancy on Adrian to be fair would have been fairly low, so just how pleasing was it to see Adrian play admirably. Making a very good save, closing down the angle on an early Spartak effort and whose goal kicks always seemed to find themselves straight in the opponents half - (one of these kicks set up a goal).

Moments after Dan L scored, Adrian would have the real chance to prove himself as Croydon were awarded a penalty, the offending challenge being extremely close to the edge of the box to know whether or not if it was inside or outside. It's not clear whether or not Ade did something to put the Spartak penalty taker off, other than move menacingly on his line, as the penalty was put wide of the post. Great relief for us (more on that emotion thing). Minutes later Leo went on a commanding run and struck a beauty for our third, you started to believe that just maybe this was going to be our day. Richie then hit another cracker of an effort from distance that looked to be destined for the corner, until a brisk wind forced it onto the post and out for a throw, but Damion did seal the victory with another great run and cool finish. Damion was hot today, great to see him playing so well.

We never do things the easy way and a bit of a defensive mix up lead to Croygas pulling one back with 3 minutes plus, still to play, but in the end, it was to be our day, our first league win at Dundonald for over 18 months (3-1 v. Kingston Cosmos, March 2003).

On another good positive note, it was good to see both sides give a really good example of sportsmanship, even the referee said he really enjoyed it, so did we!