DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

16 February 2002 - Morden & District League Division 10 (at Manor Park, New Malden - officially a home fixture)

DCFC 1 (0)
Kirk 58
FC Torres 2 (0)
65, 80ish

How do you find the words to summarise today's woeful display ? It would be fair to say that if we played this bad every game, we would be rock bottom of the league. Quite a few sides from last season, would call us the Jackyl and Hyde team of the division, putting in great performances one minute and then looking absolutely dire the next. Today, we were absolutely dire.

Our matches with Roundshaw Village can be compared to our clashes with FC Torres this season. In our opening tie with Roundshaw earlier this season, we played great football and were on top at half-time, unfortunately, we lost in the end. The return tie at home was just a disgrace as we practically gave Roundshaw the points. In our tie with FC Torres earlier in the season, we played great football and tore into them and fully deserved the points, today we were lackluster, sloppy and most surprisingly of all, lacking in team spirit.

We could make excuses, Richie picked up an injury with only 20 minutes gone, Ed had to play on an injury, the lack of any subs clearly punished us today. We were obviously let down by two no-showers, who wont be mentioned - but will be punished. They would have been perfect replacements for the injured pair.

Something was badly missing today, but to be fair it isn't something that has only just come about. Last week, we had to grind 3 points out in our tie with Merton Rangers Reserves, but at least we had enough to dig deep and do that. Today we were second best all over the pitch, our performances are deteriorating, instead of getting better.

Damien has been steadily rising up the Player Of The Season charts and he would of done himself an even bigger favour had he finished off his early chance, however the keeper did well to block his effort. Torres were creating chances to and Chara did well to spread himself and put off the opposing striker, he may have even got a touch, but a goal kick was awarded.

Giggs' miss from yesterday, is a big talking point at the moment, as were the own-goals that were scored by Sunderland two weeks ago, ironically we scored from an own-goal then and today we copied Ryan's mishap from yesterday, as Damien should have scored with the goal gaping.

At half-time, we went in puzzled, trying to work out how we could shake ourselves up and push on and get something out of this game. Unfortunately, we never found the answer, as things went from bad to worse. Playing as bad as we did, we did however take the lead, when Kirk turned and fired his 4th goal of the season, it was just what we needed, then 4 minutes later, we couldn't believe our luck, as we were awarded a penalty. The question was, who was going to take it. Richie has already missed his last two pens this season and it was agreed that Ed should take them, so Ed obliged and probably wish he hadn't, as he saw his well placed, although perhaps not well struck penalty saved by the keeper! Is this going to be a jinx that is going to haunt us ? We could have so badly done with that goal, as we weren't looking good enough to get 3 points out of this game and needed all the help we could get. You could sense that Torres were now going to get something back and they did, when their forward brilliantly fired past Chara - he had no chance! As if all this wasn't bad enough, there was another twist in the tale, as a week shot, cruelly hit a divert in the ground and completely wrong footed Chara in goal and now Torres were in front. We tried to push for an equaliser, but it was never going to be. We didn't get it and in all honesty didn't deserve it and Torres held on to register only their fourth win of the season and finally break their jinx against us.

We compared our missed opportunity to Giggs' miss yesterday, another comparison would be the branding of cards by the referee, another characteristic of yesterday's Arsenal v. Utd Clash. Why is it that history always seems to repeat itself ?

In all credit to Torres, they got their tactics spot on. We later found out that they planned to take our number 8 out of the game - Richie. They did that, I hope their intentions weren't as bad as the resulting injury that he suffered, hopefully he'll be fit to play next week. They also defended well and didn't really allow us the sort of space that we found in the last encounter. Sorry Mitcham, we let you down again!