DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

25 January 2004 Morden & District League Division 8 at Pound Lane

Oakway Sports 2 (0)
46,83
DCFC 1 (1)
Harry 3

Matty (front) still had an interest in Player of The Season, if nothing else

All in all a very sad day, barring a miracle we are now all but mathematically relegated. It has been a very testing season and no-one would have expected that we would have stuggled as we have this season, especially as we generally did so well last season. Even last season we felt we could have done better as we lost silly games, but when you look at it we attained 36 points from 18 games, we'll be lucky if we get a third of that this season.

As mentioned, this was a sad day, you couldn't help but realise that we are doomed to relegation, we've had 3 massive games: NC Royals, AC Croygas and this tie with Oakway. These have all been six pointers and we have only managed a solitary point. It was enough to bring tears to the eyes off Tuffie. A man who wears his heart on his sleeve and a man who is prepared to fight to the death for his beloved green jersey.

This was a game that we should never have lost. We were in control for the opening minutes Harry scored after 3, with a great header. He then missed a simple tap in and was unlucky not to score after nearly taking the ball around the keeper, from his lively forward surge.

Things got off to a terrible start, long before the kick-off. News that Rob wasn't going to play, meant that we were without a goalkeeper. This of course has been one of the biggest problems this season. The ideal options were to play Dan or Ed in goal, giving them the option to share the responsibility. It's not the most favoured position on the pitch, so understandably they weren't too keen to do the job. Richie gave Joe the option of playing a half in goal and then guaranteeing him the chance to play the second half out on pitch. Luckily, Joe accepted the offer and what a good thing he did to. Before the kick-off Joe looked nervous in goal and was spilling everything, you couldn't help but think, 'Here We go', but the pre-match training brought him confidence and without exaggerating he was simply brilliant in the first half, making a save that legendry keepers such as Seaman and Charalambous would be proud of! The one good thing to come out of this game is that we have found a good reliable reserve goalkeeper - you kept that one quiet Joe!

You can't really blame anyone for this defeat, we just ran out of steam and were generally unlucky. Oakway's opening goal caught us out completely. Our defending up until now had been pretty resilient, but Oakway broke through and within 60 seconds of the restart, they were level. This dampened the already tested spirits. The belief wasn't there, it was as if too many people believed that there was only ever going to be one winner and it wasn't the team in green.

Despite the fact that we lost that edge we had in the first half, we were still creating chances, Richie fired well wide from an advancing run, Ed could have scored with his back to goal, he quickly turned and fired wide - the goal was gaping. Damion went down in the area, penalty appeals were weak, so perhaps there was nothing in it. Oakway were testing us from corners, earlier in the season they may have had more luck, but we seem to have that old problem sorted out.

Oakways winner was a sickener, the defence was too slow to push up and played the Oakway forward on-side, his effort was nearly saved by Joe, but just creeped into the far post.

The worrying thing when you go on a bad run is that you fear that you may lose your best players. Strangely, we have more players available now to select from then we have had at any time this late on in the season. It may only be late January, but thoughts are realistically turning to next season. Although we are in the Hickey Cup, it would be an optimistic person that could see us having any success there, but we know we can rise to the occasion, we've done it before, but have we got enough in us to do it again ?