DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

27 October 2002 - Morden & District League Division 10 v. Euston Road (at Dundonald Road Rec.)

DCFC 3 (2)
Edwards 8,29 Allen 90
Euston Road 0 (0)

Left - Matty played well, but where will he feature in this weeks Man of The Match ? Right - Surely the ref isn't booking one of our players ?

It's been a long time coming, but Ed's double strike helped secure our first win at Dundonald since December 2001 (3-0 v. FC Torres). This record seems strange, especially when you consider that we maintained a 100 % home record last season up until our defeat against Old Wimbledonians in February, our first defeat at Dundonald last year, came in the 3-1 defeat to Beddington Eagles a week later. Since then and prior to today, we have only picked up 2 points at home.

Today's conditions were testing to say the least, with strong gales blowing from a south-westerly direction, it appeared before kick off that this was going to be a game of two halves. On a normal home game this wouldn't have made any difference, as the wind would have blown across field, on our usual Dundonald Road end pitch, but the decision by the groundsman to put us on the Merton Hall Road end pitch meant that there was going to be a huge advantage for one team in each half.

The absence of both our number one and number two keepers meant that Richie very kindly volunteered to go in goal. He was probably relieved to win the toss and elect to attack with the wind in our favour. It worked in his favour as Euston Road, rarely troubled our goal in the first half. However, we started second best, as Euston seemed to be looking more threatening in the early minutes.

When we won a free-kick from about 30 yards out, it was a chance for Ulysses to prove to us all, that he really is an expert at these set-pieces, as he intelligently made the most of the wind, to curl a free kick, into the roof of the net. The usual 'Ice Man' celebration followed and we were relieved that our slightly shaky start, was livened up, by another one of those special free kicks.

From this point onwards, we now seemed to acquire that little bit of confidence that we needed. Euston, were struggling to come to terms with the cruel gales, which were at times making this game comical. We continued to attack, although may have been disappointed that we didn't make more from our possession, until that man Edwards whipped in a corner, to score set piece number two. Glenn was frustrated to see his header bounce back off the bar, a little while later, but we went in 2-0 up at half-time.

It didn't take too long into the second half, for us to realise that although we were playing against the wind, we didn't seem to be struggling as badly as we may have expected. Infact, for the opening 15-20 minutes we were just about in control. again, there weren't a great deal of chances for either side, mainly thanks to the testing conditions. Matty was unlucky on a couple of occasions when he did well to chase through balls, but the keeper just got there first. James headed wide, Damien headed at the keeper, it didn't look like we were going to get anymore.

As the game neared an end, Euston were pressing for a goal to get them back in the game, they had quite a few efforts, all from outside the box, all of which went wide, as they never really broke our defense down.

It seemed that it was going to end 2-0, then Damien crossed into the box and there was Allen to score with a 'diving header' to complete a very satisfying win. Lets hope it doesn't take as long, for our next win at the shrine.

Goal number three - Damien crosses for Allen to head home.