DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

11 January 2004 Morden & District League Division 8 at Croygas Sports Ground

AC Croygas 4 (2)
11,15,75,84
DCFC 1 (0)
Adrian 60

AC Croygas' first goal and nearly every Dundonald player is at fault.

Does this shambolic, woeful performance really deserve a match report? Well quite simply it doesn't, but it's getting one all the same.

Just what is it with us, last week we were every bit as good as you can expect from a team at our level, but today we were simply appalling. No disrespect to our opponents, but this was an embarrassing defeat. This is only their second win in the last 2 seasons! However we were that bad you can hardly complain, they thoroughly deserved their 3 points.

It is puzzling that we perform so badly against teams down the bottom with us and yet when we play stronger opponents, we give them a run for their money. That also coupled with the fact that we haven't won 'on the road' since 23 March 2003, was the perfect recipe for a crushing defeat.

There was something not right with us, it was something that you could sense before the first ball had even been kicked. It was that lackluster feel about the place, no buzz, no hunger, apart from Tuffie who wanted blood. Our performance was so suicidal, he could easily have seen it.

Forget about a new kit for next season, an electric chair would be more appropriate, each player should take it in turns to have a quick 60,000 volt shock shot up their bottle, to get them going before each game. If Dundonald Primary school had witnessed this shocker of a performance, we would probably have been approached to have played them in a friendly!

It's not worth going into great detail about this game, for the first 15 minutes we were asleep, defensively nonexistent as catalogues of errors at the back meant that Croygas were two up in no time. The sad thing was it could have been more! If you remember our performance last week against Erskine, we were awful then for the opening minutes. We have to sort this out, as despite the fact that we played like pansies for the opening 15 minutes, we weren't too bad once we had settled down. However any possession we did have never looked threatening, as we had nothing up front to cause Croygas any concern.

There has to be something positive to say, even after a result like this and one could honestly say that we played quite well for the start of the second half, we were dominating possession and deserved our goal. That goal came from a well taken corner from Harry, as he swung it right into the far post and Adrian was there to make sure. We needed another and we were pressing for another, unfortunately it never came, so when Daniel's perfectly good back pass was horrendously fumbled by Jamie in goal, all our heads dropped and we went back to playing bad again. The fourth Croygas goal put the dampers on things completely, although no one said it, everyone wanted the whistle to blow.

It was a great day for Croygas and a dreadful day for us. It's sad that after making so much progress last season, we make a complete backward turn with an abysmal performance like this.