DUNDONALD CHASE F.C.
NEWS ARCHIVE

29 September 2002 - Morden & District Division 10 v. Roundshaw Village (at Roundshaw Estate)

Roundshaw Village 2 (0)
DCFC 0 (0)

Not the best way to start a new season. As well as losing the opening match, we were up against tricky opposition, with intimidating support. We always expected a bit of rough and tumble and we got it, perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that what you would expect to be the trickiest fixture in Division 10 this season, is out of the way.

It's getting to the stage, where we could lose count of the number of times that we can honestly say that we started the brighter, but faded out as the game wore on. Today was no exception. for the opening 25-30 minutes, we were the more lively, knocking the ball around nicely, leaving Roundshaw, completely on the back foot. Richard Carey and Ed both had chances from free-kicks, both were from a similar range, but were dealt with in contrasting styles. Ed choosing to try and place his effort, while Richard belted the ball as hard as he could and nearly got rewarded. We have no problems playing neat passing football, our only problem is having someone to finish it. Damien and Kirk work well together up front, but neither possess that strikers instinct which was desperately needed today. Richie also had a good effort just before half-time, which their keeper dealt with well.

The outlook at half-time looked good. We were mainly in control, Roundshaw looked to be chasing the game and we could sense that this game was there for the taking. However it just didn't happen in the second half. Roundshaw came out with a bit more bite to their play as they slowly started to mount more pressure on our goal. Chara was almost redundant in the first half, but his services were to be required for the next 45 minutes. With just under 10 minutes into the second half gone, Roundshaw scored when we failed to clear our lines from a corner. Lets hope that this season isn't going to carry on from where last season left off - conceding sloppy goals from corners. This goal completely changed the game. It now seemed that all of the roundshaw players were running on Duracell Ultra batteries, as they all appeared fully charged, lifted by the goal. It appeared to give them so much belief, belief that they didn't seem to have in the first half.

A number of substitutions were made, in a bid to try and turn things around, this also included moving Glenn Moore from defence to his beloved position up front. Not happy playing at the back, he now looked happy as larry playing up front again, it was as if the sentence had been lifted and he was now a free man.

Roundshaw then created more chances, long pumps up field caused our back line all sorts of problems, as they stormed through, and nearly scored on a couple of occasions. We tried to get back into the game, but were losing grip. Then a bit of a scuffle, resulted in one of their players being sent off for head-butting! Things were starting to turn heated, as we tried to grab the equaliser. It all got too much for two of our players as they walked off the pitch in disgust - the game was now 10 v 9! In their absence we soon conceded number two late on.

When the final whistle blew, there was almost a relief that the game was over, as well as the disappointment of reflecting on how things might have been, had we taken our chances early on.