Wednesday 14th October 2009. Northern Counties East League - League CupThe Welfare Ground, Woodlands, Doncaster.
Brodsworth Welfare 1 (Shane Fox 45)
AFC Emley 2 (Neil Bagshaw 55 OG, Gavin Armitage 96)
After Extra Time.
HT 1-0. 90 mins 1-1. ET HT 1-2 ET FT 1-2
Admission £5. Programme £1. Attendance 50
Occasionally an ugly juxtaposition of clumsily thrown together composite elements, combined with a bit of mistiming and off kelter 'co-ordination', can melt together to produce a quite satisfying mess that is actually a complete joy to behold - take the way the off tempo drumming enhances Hawkwind's 'Silver Machine' for example - but tonight such a chain of events merely made for a rather frustrating spectacle at times.Emley knocked the ball around well at times and created loads of chances, but they misfired and were completely unconvincing in front of goal.
Going on this performance (and the one I saw at Bottesford a few weeks ago) Emley are possibly the most attack minded team I have seen all season, but they need to address the fact they have a very low percentage pass rate for actually putting the ball away when gilt edged chances by the score are begging for a final decisive touch. Even as a complete neutral, I found Emley's lack of sharpness in front of goal quite alarming.
Brodsworth for their part, were not the best football team on the pitch, but they stuck at it and through employing guts more than guile almost nicked the result a couple of times. Alas they haven't spent a lot of time in opponents penalty areas this season yet and their lack of familiarity with their surroundings seemed to throw them a bit.
Emley had what looked like a blatant penalty waved away on 35 minutes, we were stood in line with the challenge and were unanimous that we would all have awarded a spot kick were any of us fit enough to run around in a black kit for 90 minutes ... but we aren't, the guy that is shouted "Great tackle!" and waved play on. He probably disliked their Hibs style away kit too.
Moments before half time Emley only had themselves to blame for all their poor finishing when Broddy's Shane Fox ran into the area and curled a well placed shot into the net to snatch the lead at a traditionally psychologically premium time to score.
Half Time 1-0
During the break I overheard an Emley fan saying "If we'd have wanted to win this one we would've done by now" ... Hmm, if Emley really were missing all of those chances on purpose because they didn't want to be in this competition, then they were extraordinarily good at it.
The second half followed pretty much the same pattern as the first - Emley passing their way through Brodsworth's rearguard without providing a killer touch and the home home side belting the ball forward and having an occasional flurry around the Emley box.Eventually Emley hit a long ball forward themselves and Broddy's number 5 Neil Bagshaw showed them how to find the back of the net ... as the ball fell out of the sky towards the edge of the penalty box he executed a perfect back header towards his keeper, a skill that takes no small amount of practice to execute properly, he weighted his defensive strategy perfectly and put the ball well beyond the reach of any of the incoming Emley players who were following the trajectory of the ball. Alas he also put the ball beyond the reach of his own goalkeeper who had advanced from his line to deal with the ball and equalised for Emley on 55 minutes.
I blame modern players for this kind of thing happening, they all shout "Squeeze!" and "Second ball!" these days, instead of "Man on!" and "Keepers ball!"
On 73 minutes Brodsworth were reduced to ten men, that happens when you throw a punch in front of the referee and an 8 a-side posturing and pulling threatening faces competition breaks out on the field of play. It was goal scorer Shane Fox who got his marching orders, Brodsworth's most effective player on the night until the red mists descended.
Now Emley would surely take advantage of their numerical advantage and finally get on the end of one of the frequent balls being played into the final third - wouldn't they?
Err, no actually.
The whistle sounded for 90 minutes and the players got into little group huddles and listened to their managers instructions for the extra half hour that was now going to be needed to separate these sides - and the spitting rain turned into a steady drizzle, the sort that Peter Kay's dinner ladies dreaded.
Extra TimeTypically, now we were going to have to persevere with far more of this game than most people present would probably have wanted to, barely 5 minutes into extra time Gavin Armitage cut into the Brodsworth box from the left and lobbed the ball over the advancing keeper. Armitage's goal was extremely well taken, but his timing could've been a lot better!
Brodsworth kept huffing and puffing and forced a couple of corners late on, but they didn't have enough puff left in them to blow Emley's house down, even though they had pushed 'goal scorer' Neil Bagshaw forward to add some height up front.
In the end disjointed Emley just about warranted their narrow victory over messy Brodsworth and we all went home to watch the England v Belarus highlights on TV.
Like the elderly man sat in the stand had said ... "Who'd want to sit in t'house watching t'England match when Broddy's playing at 'ome!?"
Who indeed?
I wasn't anticipating extra time, not given Brodsworth's hard earned reputation for defensive capitulation this season, nor was I expecting that there would be even more night time closures and diversions on the A1, which after 20 minutes of weaving through traffic cones on the southbound carriageway sent us back up into 'Donny' for a circuitous expedition that more than doubled our mileage on the way home.
But these things happen I suppose ... usually to me!!!
the66pow
