Bramhall Rangers 6 Cheadle United 8
"...something about the Titanic that people forget...there were over 1000 miles of uneventful, very pleasurable cruising before it hit the iceberg" (Alan Partridge - Knowing me, Knowing you)
Well fate would have it that the final match of the season would be against Cheadle United, in a fight where the loser would finish not only bottom of our division, but also bottom of the entire Thursday night League!
With the Rangers award ceremony taking place that weekend, obviously people wanted to end on a high. The Rangers had traditionally been the victors in almost every encounter with this team before and you could tell certain players wanted to finish on a goal scoring high.
Cheadle United lined up with a couple of new faces, but that did not worry the Rangers who expected to end the season with a win. Right from the start of the 1st half though it became clear this would be a Cheadle United match like no other. The observations from the previous match that Cheadle United were changing there style came through and right from the word go Cheadle United conceded two fairly blatant fouls clearly playing the man not the ball. A move straight out of the Vinny Jones 87-88 FA Cup final against Liverpool play book.
A scrappy half unfolded in front of the Rangers and unlike the usual clean free flowing matches we’ve had with Cheadle, this was a stop start affair. With the bar being set so low on the violence used in the challenges things only got worse as the half went on. The Rangers were perhaps a little stunned for a while on why it had instantly turned into such a dirty game, and were slow to start retaliating. To the Rangers credit, they managed to keep fairly level headed with Mini grabbing at least two in the first half by getting on the end of passes from darting runs by Shiz down the boards.
Others scored too, but sadly my memory has let me down. In the nets, Belly somehow had a penalty against him. The intense stare from Belly put the taker off, and the shot was just wide, however Belly didn’t let his focus slip as the loose ball was poorly handled by his outfield team mates as a follow up shot was skilfully saved.
At half time the Rangers went in 4-3 up. A close half, but one they were just winning. However as the second half started, that Big Red button in the sky seemed to appear and hover above the Rangers heads begging to be pressed. Sadly Russ had pulled some muscles in the first half, but in the excitement of the game went back onto the pitch in the second. Whilst his intensions were good, the effect wasn’t as an injured hobbling Russ just couldn’t keep pace with the speedy Cheadle Players, and after a goal was conceded, he realised himself and subbed himself off permanently for the rest of the game. The Rangers were down to 6 outfield players now.
Meanwhile, the blatant fouling continued. The Rangers were giving as good as they got, which of course inevitably meant Cheadle fouled even more. As an aside, it should be noted that this was one of the poorest reffing performances I’ve witnessed. With both teams now overtly fouling, with challenges which would have got an instant red card in an FA refereed match, the best our ref could muster were free kicks. What it needed was a ref with the balls to call a halt, get every member from the two teams together and tell them that the blatant fouling stops from this moment on. That didn’t happen…
The art of fouling is an interesting one. There are a few trends that I’ve noticed from my experience of watching and playing football. Any England fan will be aware that a dirty team will target certain players on the opposition team for volume fouls. The criteria for being targeted are generally:
- Skilled players
- Players who’ve recently returned from injury
- Players with a short fuse
As such, as the second half went on, Mini found himself on the end of more than his fair share dirty fouls. Sadly, so did John. Eventually, I think it’s fair to say it became too much for him, and like Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, he lost it and reached for the Big Red Button! After one particularly bad challenge, he got up, announced to the ref he was injured and left the pitch whilst the ball was still in play. Sadly he did this whilst shouting and screaming in somewhat of a rage at the opposition and the ref. Off the pitch, he was sadly still fuming and for most of the rest of the half, a stream of abuse could be heard being directed not at the opposition, but at one of his own team mates! I can only imagine the big boost mentally this gave to the opposition at precisely the worst moment possible as the Rangers now had no subs, and were losing, in a game that the ref was appaling, and the Rangers were only just keeping there heads above water. It was a very sad end to what had been a seasons worth of good solid performances for the chap.
The game carried on, and to the credit of the remaining players on the pitch, they held it together pretty well and showed tremendous resilience to the numerous adversities now set against them. Nev battled well and started to turn the tables on one of the opposition who was starting to show signs of getting angry, Big Pete tried to inspire the team with some flair and really started to use his physical presence, and Mini got some more goals.
The game ended, Cheadle understandably ecstatic with the win and jumping for the first time ever off the bottom. The Apprentices had truly become the Masters, but with the dirty tactics they had to use to do it, Masters of what?
The future looks uncertain for the Rangers, it was a truly soul destroying game, that emotionally drained most if not every Ranger present. One thing is certain is that with the change in style being shown to work against the Rangers, it will be used against us every time we play Cheadle United in the future.
Goals - Mini 4, Peter 1, OG 1
Nev goal watch - 51
Well fate would have it that the final match of the season would be against Cheadle United, in a fight where the loser would finish not only bottom of our division, but also bottom of the entire Thursday night League!
With the Rangers award ceremony taking place that weekend, obviously people wanted to end on a high. The Rangers had traditionally been the victors in almost every encounter with this team before and you could tell certain players wanted to finish on a goal scoring high.
Cheadle United lined up with a couple of new faces, but that did not worry the Rangers who expected to end the season with a win. Right from the start of the 1st half though it became clear this would be a Cheadle United match like no other. The observations from the previous match that Cheadle United were changing there style came through and right from the word go Cheadle United conceded two fairly blatant fouls clearly playing the man not the ball. A move straight out of the Vinny Jones 87-88 FA Cup final against Liverpool play book.
A scrappy half unfolded in front of the Rangers and unlike the usual clean free flowing matches we’ve had with Cheadle, this was a stop start affair. With the bar being set so low on the violence used in the challenges things only got worse as the half went on. The Rangers were perhaps a little stunned for a while on why it had instantly turned into such a dirty game, and were slow to start retaliating. To the Rangers credit, they managed to keep fairly level headed with Mini grabbing at least two in the first half by getting on the end of passes from darting runs by Shiz down the boards.
Others scored too, but sadly my memory has let me down. In the nets, Belly somehow had a penalty against him. The intense stare from Belly put the taker off, and the shot was just wide, however Belly didn’t let his focus slip as the loose ball was poorly handled by his outfield team mates as a follow up shot was skilfully saved.
At half time the Rangers went in 4-3 up. A close half, but one they were just winning. However as the second half started, that Big Red button in the sky seemed to appear and hover above the Rangers heads begging to be pressed. Sadly Russ had pulled some muscles in the first half, but in the excitement of the game went back onto the pitch in the second. Whilst his intensions were good, the effect wasn’t as an injured hobbling Russ just couldn’t keep pace with the speedy Cheadle Players, and after a goal was conceded, he realised himself and subbed himself off permanently for the rest of the game. The Rangers were down to 6 outfield players now.
Meanwhile, the blatant fouling continued. The Rangers were giving as good as they got, which of course inevitably meant Cheadle fouled even more. As an aside, it should be noted that this was one of the poorest reffing performances I’ve witnessed. With both teams now overtly fouling, with challenges which would have got an instant red card in an FA refereed match, the best our ref could muster were free kicks. What it needed was a ref with the balls to call a halt, get every member from the two teams together and tell them that the blatant fouling stops from this moment on. That didn’t happen…
The art of fouling is an interesting one. There are a few trends that I’ve noticed from my experience of watching and playing football. Any England fan will be aware that a dirty team will target certain players on the opposition team for volume fouls. The criteria for being targeted are generally:
- Skilled players
- Players who’ve recently returned from injury
- Players with a short fuse
As such, as the second half went on, Mini found himself on the end of more than his fair share dirty fouls. Sadly, so did John. Eventually, I think it’s fair to say it became too much for him, and like Eric Cantona, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, he lost it and reached for the Big Red Button! After one particularly bad challenge, he got up, announced to the ref he was injured and left the pitch whilst the ball was still in play. Sadly he did this whilst shouting and screaming in somewhat of a rage at the opposition and the ref. Off the pitch, he was sadly still fuming and for most of the rest of the half, a stream of abuse could be heard being directed not at the opposition, but at one of his own team mates! I can only imagine the big boost mentally this gave to the opposition at precisely the worst moment possible as the Rangers now had no subs, and were losing, in a game that the ref was appaling, and the Rangers were only just keeping there heads above water. It was a very sad end to what had been a seasons worth of good solid performances for the chap.
The game carried on, and to the credit of the remaining players on the pitch, they held it together pretty well and showed tremendous resilience to the numerous adversities now set against them. Nev battled well and started to turn the tables on one of the opposition who was starting to show signs of getting angry, Big Pete tried to inspire the team with some flair and really started to use his physical presence, and Mini got some more goals.
The game ended, Cheadle understandably ecstatic with the win and jumping for the first time ever off the bottom. The Apprentices had truly become the Masters, but with the dirty tactics they had to use to do it, Masters of what?
The future looks uncertain for the Rangers, it was a truly soul destroying game, that emotionally drained most if not every Ranger present. One thing is certain is that with the change in style being shown to work against the Rangers, it will be used against us every time we play Cheadle United in the future.
Goals - Mini 4, Peter 1, OG 1
Nev goal watch - 51
posted by ShiZ at 9:26 pm
3 Comments:
Nice report Shiz and unexpected. I was under the impression this game had been banished to memory, never to be spkoen of again!
For the record I got 4 goals and I believe Peter got 1. The other I think should be credited as an OG after Peter had a shot that came back off the baords into the keepers arms who promptly threw it into the net.
I have asked Powerleague to consider some earlier KO's this seaosn too, and feel this could help a little in our quest for improvement.
I know personally I find it harder to get motivated for a 9:00pm or later KO than say a 7pm KO. We can but hope.
I'm sure someone else would have put a report up if I hadn't. My thinking was that in the cold light of day, it was only a loss, and we've had many before, so why should it be treated any different really.
I think your point from the post before this one entitled "Some Thoughts..." is particularly good and one we should all take to heart. I think its a great observation and I'd agree that as a team, many of us (definitely me) get more caught up on how the opposition, the ref and other team members are performing, rather than on our own performance.
My new seasons resolution will be to focus on my own performance much more. I feel in the past two seasons the amount of heart I've put into the game has gone down. Maybe this is because I'm getting depressed worrying about everything but my own performance. As you say Mini "For all the will in the world ultimately that is the only thing you can impact"
After the previous game against Cheadle Utd, a couple of the comments were:
ShiZ said...
I enjoyed the game. I did think that some of the Cheadle players were starting to change there style of play a little though. "Rage" seems to have taken it upon himself to be the hardman for the team. Unfortuntely for him, he's not really got the build for it (none of them have really), and there were some fairly comical ridiculously late pushes he did to make up for it (though he didn't have the force to do proper damage). However, it shows something though that Cheadle players are trying different styles of play in an attempt to improve the team, and if we're not careful, could catch us up!
4:12 PM
Pie said...
I too thought that Shiz. It seemed they were trying to get stronger in the challenges. Maybe this will help them improve. Something we should keep an eye on next game...
Lets not let it happen again.
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