DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

28 September 2003 Friendly at Cheam Rec

Mitcham Strollers 2(2)
DCFC 1(0)
Joe

After our indifferent start to the season, we really needed to ensure that we kept our practice up and the perfect solution was to a play a friendly, instead of having a week off. Luckily Mitcham heard a rumour that we had a Sunday off as well as themselves and a friendly was subsequently arranged. Disappointingly though for us, we could only field a scratch eleven.

We have three goalkeepers on our books, but unfortunately none of them could play. Admittedly Jamie decided to not play, mainly because it was a friendly, so it was down to our line-o to do the job.

The last time we played the Strollers, not that long ago, was also in a friendly and again we lost by the odd goal (3-2). In many ways, today's encounter was similar to that game, having taken an early foothold on the game, but failing to make the possession count.

The first 10 minutes of this game saw us take the game to the Strollers, although struggling to battle with 'the hill', we had the majority of the possession, but it was Mitcham who scored from the first real opportunity, when a well hit shot, which looked saveable found it's way into the corner. It was a disappointing way to fall behind, especially as we had seemed to have settled down and were asking more questions up until then. Despite this we kept our heads up and kept plugging away, but Mitcham had more chances - a header onto the bar and a shot which hit the post, with Tom sprawling on the line, Ed also did well clearing off the line.

We are desperately missing a true striker and what with Kirk being missing today, Matty looked all alone up front. Matty had our best chance though in the first half, put through he froze when the line-o flagged, little did he know at the time the referee was giving advantage, shame, as he indecisively put the effort wide. Damien also looked threatening down the right and despite his trickery-pokery, couldn't make his hard work count, all that was missing was the perfect final ball.

As if playing with the bare eleven wasn't worrying enough, we could have done without the extra worry of Richie hobbling all over the place. The reason - not warming up properly! Did someone say he was a fitness instructor ? Gunes was also not 100%, playing on an ankle injury from last week - at this point it seemed as if we were going to be on the receiving end of a spanking if we were not careful. Looking back to last season, one of our most pleasing results, was probably the 1-0 away win to Mitcham, reason being that we had to dig deep, in what were very testing conditions and again similar to today, playing with a scratch side, again carrying injuries. We won that day, unfortunately though, today wasn't going to be the same!

Richie luckily enough found the invisible magic sponge was enough to get him back on his feet, but Mitcham's second goal was a real sucker punch. To be fair it was a great strike from range, but caught Jel in no mans land and Mitcham were loving it, as they were two up. Again our heads didn't drop, but the half-time whistle left us feeling that this wasn't going to be our day. The team talk was positive, after all this was only a friendly. We still had the slope in our favour in the second half, so it wasn't over yet. We did start well, it was Matty that carved out the first opportunity of the second half, with only seconds gone, producing a decent save from the keeper. We continued to ask more questions and eventually scored when Joe pounced to react to a good save from the Mitcham keeper and score his debut goal, it had been coming. However Mitcham gave as good as they got and despite the upward slope started putting more pressure on our goal, Jel had to be alert and was helped out by some very good goal line clearances from Gunes and Leroy to add to Ed's in the first half.

The more the game wore on, the more you believed that the advantage would mean that we would sneak something and it looked like we had earned the draw, when Ed who weaved a little bit of magic, went sprawling in the box. The Mitcham referee, was 100% honest and awarded us a penalty. Ed took responsibility to take the kick, this was surely the easy bit, after the work he had to go to, to earn the penalty, but sadly hit a substandard effort wide of the post - the jinx aint over!

Time unfortunately got the better of us (didn't it go quick!) There were plenty of good things we can take from this game, the team spirit is there, we can still produce even when the chips are against us, surely our first win is just around the corner. Also well done to the Mitcham referee, who was not at all biased and had a great game himself.