(at The University of Liverpool Playing Fields, Mather Avenue)
Bobby Mimms reports
It had been set seven days beforehand, and on Saturday the trap was sprung – having laid it themselves Convocation can blame no one else for being caught. Their victory over Croft in last week’s Sealand Cup semi-final allowed them – like Bayern Munich – to take part in a final staged at their own ground, but perhaps that, coupled with a belief that the hard work had already been done, cultivated a sense of overconfidence that was always likely to snare them. It probably didn’t help that, for many of the team, the smell of recent success in the competition still lingers in the nostrils, but this final hadn’t felt fated to be theirs like it had three years ago, as their performances in the recent couple of months haven’t suggested they were hitting their stride like they did back then; it actually felt like an anticlimax, and Convo played to the mood perfectly.
Beating the Welsh side on their own patch in the group stages also probably contributed towards the erroneous belief that a second Sealand Cup was theirs to lose, but, just as the USSR found out in the 1988 European Championships – having beaten Holland in the group stages before then losing to them when they met up again in the final – that is another trap to be wary of. Halkyn looked a little different and a lot fitter than they had last month (there was a whiff of tit-for-tat about their fresher-faced line-up, as they’d been a tad upset by a couple of youngsters the Wyncote side had been forced to use in Wales), but it would be wrong to suggest that their sudden squad enhancement was any more to do with the two teams’ reversal of fortunes than the apparent lack of the hunger that had been evident within the Convo ranks in 2009, or the change in their team spirit since then. There didn’t seem to be the excitement of last time either, as that mountain had been climbed; they’d been there and done that.
Possibly as a result of that lack of novelty there were far fewer colleagues, friends and family to cheer Convo on at their own beano than there had been at Winsford. Maybe people just had better things to do with their time on such a lovely, warm afternoon, but those that did turn up at Wyncote (Richy O’Brien and John Flamson were two – the latter presenting the post-match awards) definitely missed a trick, as it would have been a great occasion to have some sort of pitch-side barbeque – a few sausage barms while watching the match from next to the sparkling duck pond would surely have had more appeal than a one-hundred-mile round trip in the pouring rain.
But then it wasn’t the only trick Convocation missed on Saturday; they were ridiculously naive from the first whistle to the last. Decked out in white, Halkyn got the game underway playing into a slight breeze and away from the artificial pitches, and pretty much bossed the game from the off, even having the confidence to backheel the ball clear in their own penalty area after Jon Kearney had won a corner for their opponents in the opening few minutes – it was a stunt that could have stymied their best-laid plans before the game had really got going, but once they did get away with it they never looked back.
Although Richy Houston – who’d turned up to play unannounced (this year’s Mark Done?) – tried a thirty-yard shot that drifted wide just after that, it would take until the twenty-sixth minute before a red shirt of Convocation went close to scoring, as Halkyn hemmed them into their own half and had numerous good chances of their own. But while the Welsh side were easily the better of the two in the first half, spending most of it very much on the front foot, there was never any real fear that they were about to dish out another thrashing as they had when the two teams met back in January (11-2).
They somehow failed to take advantage of an ill-advised Paul Dickson header that nearly set the cat amongst the pigeons inside his own penalty area, and shortly after that fired off a shot from several yards outside the Convo eighteen-yard line that goalkeeper Matt Round was always behind on his way to claiming it comfortably.
And yet despite Halkyn’s dominance you couldn’t help but think that any breakthrough for them was more likely to come from the mistakes of their opponents. Following on from Dickson’s lead Andy Willis nearly sent them clear through on goal when his absence of anything resembling a right foot sliced the ball awfully, and only the presence of Kearney, intervening just inside the penalty area, prevented Round from facing a one-on-one.
It didn’t take long for Willis to redeem himself, as Richy Schofield conceded a silly free kick in the middle of his own half that was lumped deep into the penalty area, needing a well-placed defender to clear the ball (out for a corner, which ultimately came to nothing). Sixty seconds after that though, it was only the fingertips of Convo ‘keeper that kept the game goalless, when one of the Welsh side larruped a rising effort from about thirty yards out.
By then you didn’t have to be an expert reader of tea leaves to sense that this wasn’t going to end pleasantly for Convocation. It was a tribute to obstinacy that their backline held out for as long as it did, because even at its best it looked extremely wobbly; an accident waiting to happen. Making up for the disappointment of missing out in Winsford (due to injury), Andy McLaren had starting at left back, but aside from when he trundled up front in the first few minutes for one of his side’s rare corner attempts he suffered a torrid opening half, as much faster Halkyn players targeted him for his lack of speed – Dickson was subjected to a similar ordeal on the other side of the rearguard.
In between the two full backs Kevin Schofield was easily the most competent of the opening period’s defensive quartet, but in fairness that’s little more than the old ‘tallest dwarf’ argument. His partner was Willis, but other than the very occasional adeptly-completed action his was a nightmarish afternoon, his performance every time he was in possession as ominous as a creaky door in a horror movie. It might be a little unfair to keep making comparisons with 2009, but those two were the heart of the defence then as well, yet that partnership was unrecognisable on Saturday; while the defensive barricade back then felt impregnable, this wall of red was akin to the graffitied one in Berlin in 1991, and with the Halkyn attackers looking particularly fit and lean they were far too easily bullied (Convo could probably have done with Ian Mitchell throwing his weight around). Behind all that nonsense it’s fair to say that Round had to be constantly on his toes.
Their travails at the back wouldn’t have been so worrying if those playing up front had been on their game and not seemed so ineffective. Richy Schofield and Chris Lamb were the starting strikers and they combined slightly inadvertently, more-or-less midway through the half, when the latter won a free kick in the middle of the Halkyn territory and the former forced the opposition ‘keeper to tip the ball over his crossbar – although he could probably have caught it with ease – for a corner that again came to nothing. Several minutes before that Lamb had been incorrectly pulled up for offside when played clear through on goal, but apart from those two chances the forwards seemed almost ponderous, and Convo never really looked likely to score during the first period.
There were far too many Schofield-Schofield balls – more passes between brothers than in a monastery – which when you consider that they were playing at opposite ends of the pitch was obviously at the expense of linking up with other (almost always better placed) compeers, and cannot have been conducive to a settled team spirit. In between, Houston partnered Paul Fairclough in the centre of midfield (the latter looking as though he was suffering from radiation poisoning, due to his sudden lack of hair and not-so-sudden orange glow) but they rarely got a chance to play the ball, let alone put a foot on it, due to their opponents’ excellent harrying and the fact that it was frequently hurtling past them overhead. On the flanks Kearney – enjoying his last game as a single man – was mirrored by Joel Jelen, but the latter might as well have brought a deckchair to the game for all the benefit he provided on the right wing.
However, regardless of all of Convo’s flaws, they were the victims of slight misfortune when the opening goal was scored just before the break. They lost possession on the edge of the Halkyn penalty area and the Welsh #15 (the guy who’d had his face mashed in the group game between the two teams five weeks ago) broke down his right flank, easily brushed past McLaren, and then evaded a challenge from Willis before pulling the ball back from the byline for a colleague. But in one of those Sliding Doors moments that decide everything in life, the subsequent rising shot from just inside the penalty area held up in a momentary gust of wind and then dropped just under the crossbar (despite Round getting his fingertips to the ball), when it would probably have sailed harmlessly over the frame of the goal on a still day.
With only three minutes to go until the interval you wouldn’t have blamed Convo for just shutting up shop and making sure that they got to the turnaround without conceding again, so fair play to them that they actually went straight on the offensive and almost found an immediate equaliser. Houston prevented the ball from going out for a throw-in to Halkyn – who did pretty much down tools for the half as soon as they scored – and played in Kevin Schofield down the inside-left channel, and having evaded a couple of challenges from opponents as he neared their penalty area the defender put a deep cross into the box that drifted a little closer to the goal than he probably intended, and which his brother (surprisingly) got on the end of, but could only head just over the crossbar.
Half-time was blown almost immediately; thirty seconds early.
On such a bright and sunny afternoon the game felt like an interloper amongst the busy buzzing of frisky insects and the hissing of summer lawns, and after a long season and a hectic forty-five minutes in temperatures not particularly suitable for association football, all the players needed their five-minute rest. But the body language of those in red during that interval didn’t exude confidence, as the timing of Halkyn’s goal, as much as the concession itself, had perhaps woken them up to the fact that this wasn’t the sure thing so many had assumed it was going to be. The most important issue at the restart, of course, was not to concede again, but the Convo players’ heads hadn’t been in the right place to begin with so they sleepwalked their way back out for the second half and, sure enough, within five minutes it was two-nil and Halkyn could afford to ease off the gas a little.
Again there was an element of luck to the goal, but considering it was scored from a free kick on the edge of the penalty area, conceded when last man Willis quite deliberately scythed down the white-shirted #15 and yet only received a yellow card from the summa rudis, Ken Jones (who had turned up at Wyncote fashionably late), instead of the regulation sending off, Convo couldn’t really complain. The dead ball was drilled low towards the goal like an absolute rocket, and though Round appeared to have it covered, when the thing smashed against his left-hand post it rebounded against his back as he dived, and then re-rebounded into the net.
It was cruel on the ‘keeper, who played well all game, but the own-goal fairies have no respect for the sanctity of a good performance. He was called into action again several minutes later when, from the edge of the area, the Welsh side curled the ball towards the same bottom left-hand corner, but on that occasion he was able to tip it around the post to safety.
Halkyn clearly weren’t easing off too much, as in between the goal and that latest effort substitute Mike Edwards, on at right back in place of Dickson, was forced to clear a low cross played into the six-yard box, a split second before an opponent running in behind him would surely have made it three. The introduction of the Treasurer – playing in what would become his third losing final for Convocation (presumably he gets to keep the Bleedin’ Jinx trophy) – certainly helped to reduce the propensity for the jitters in the back line, as had the concurrent half-time addition of Holder (for McLaren), as if for no other reason the Welsh side weren’t so capable of blasting through the defence down the flanks. But while it was all very well closing the stable door after the horse had already bolted, Convo’s priority if they were to win a second Sealand Cup in three years had to be at the other end of the pitch.
Unfortunately they just didn’t look like coming back, while Halkyn never looked like capitulating. Lamb had been fairly ineffective all game and by the mid-point of the second period it had become clear that he was injured, although even then he wanted to play on when Dickson decided to hook him and send Jelen back on in his stead; the Wizard of Winsford mulled around on the sidelines for a minute or two before getting off in what can only be described as a sulk. At the same time as the swap, Kevin Schofield was sent up front as Convo changed to a win-or-bust 3-4-3 formation.
Briefly it appeared that the tactical alterations might work, as Convocation enjoyed their most sustained period of pressure of the game. Wearing the modern-day equivalent of a hair shirt under his kit – the Speyer tour top – Jelen had earlier (at the interval) been replaced on the flank by a foppish John Topping (there was a look of a youthful Hugh Grant about him), at the same time as Steve Jones had come on for Fairclough in the middle, and while the swap of the Chairman and the former Social Secretary would usually be interpreted as a fairly like-for-like substitution, on the afternoon it was also definitely an improvement (although the introduction of Jelen’s deckchair would have been an improvement).
Three times in five-minutes the red shirts had a chance to pull a goal back, but they were all either wasted in wanton fashion or foiled by erroneous calls from the ref. Kevin Schofield curled an effort just over the Halkyn crossbar after his brother had pulled the ball back from the byline for him, while within sixty seconds Richy combined with Topping (who was playing in what would become his second losing final for Convocation) along the right flank before putting a deep cross into the penalty area, which Kearney blasted across the face of the goal after the Welsh ‘keeper had flapped enough at the airborne ball to possibly distract him. And then, with just over a quarter of an hour remaining, Kevin was played clear through on goal but was incorrectly pulled back for offside.
That was one of the rare occasions inside the last twenty minutes that the Halkyn defence weren’t camped on the edge of their own penalty area, as their plan seemed to be to soak up whatever Convo threw at them and then try and counter attack whenever they could. They very nearly capitalised on the tactic in the closing minutes, but with a little over ten remaining it was actually their opponents who almost caught them on the break.
The white-shirted #15 (who for some reason was wearing shoulder pads that wouldn’t have been out of place on Dynasty) was played clear through on the Convo goal and looked as though he had scored, having chipped the ball over the advancing Round from just inside the penalty area, but hot on his heels had been Holder and the veteran ran in to prevent it from crossing the line with a yard or two to spare. His intervention didn’t end there as he passed the ball out of the back to Jones who in turn played in Richy Schofield, one-on-one with the opposition ‘keeper, but for once the recent Hammer of Halkyn (he scored five goals in the group game) looked more Lionel Blair than Messi, and having taken what felt like an eternity to decide what he was going to do he simply scuffed the ball wide of the target from the eighteen-yard line.
He’d had to score. That might not have been the moment that Halkyn could start to celebrate, but it was the moment when everybody pretty much knew where the trophy was going. The miss was a sort of punch to the guts of the Convo players, and with their opponents twice shy and unwilling to do anything else to endanger their impending victory the majority of the final few minutes were spent sparring in midfield, although only one set of players were mocked from the sideline by Brian the security guard (who was wearing a new stab vest), causing their collective shoulders to slump even further.
In the eighty-eighth minute the Welsh side should really have added a cherry to the top of their impending victory when one of their players suddenly found himself unmarked and in possession on the edge of the Convo six-yard box. But though he beat Round the guy was unable to get the better of the woodwork, as his shot hit the inside of the ‘keeper’s left-hand post and rebounded across the face of the goal and away to safety through the area.
Even that late in the match one or two Convo players hadn’t completely given up, and with the Fat Lady getting ready to clear her throat (and a large majority of the players on the pitch still expecting to see Round’s net bulge) Kevin Schofield was sent gallivanting down the left flank in possession, with no outfield opponents between him and the goal. As he drifted into the Halkyn penalty area he should really have passed the ball inside to the only player capable of keeping up with his break, but as it wasn’t his brother (it was Jelen) he opted not to and consequently was almost castrated by a challenge from the opposition ‘keeper for his insistence on taking him on. As it wasn’t a foul, play continued momentarily until one of the Halkyn guys sportingly put the ball out so that Schofield could retrieve his gonads from wherever they’d landed, but there then followed a fleeting moment of confrontation when Convocation refused to kick it back to their opponents after the throw-in. Reluctantly they eventually did.
Referee Jones added on a couple of minutes at the end, enough time for Schofield (K) to put a deep cross into the Halkyn box that both Topping and Willis just failed to connect with. But with Convo’s un-hatched chickens well and truly counted, full time was blown almost immediately after that and Halkyn had won the cup for their former boss, who’d died earlier in the season.
It was also the end of an era for Convocation, as at the subsequent AGM the worst-kept secret in the club was officially revealed when Dickson announced that he was stepping down as Second Team Captain. In one last hurrah to his reign he’d spent the second half of this match in full-on flatulence mode, his arse tooting away on the sideline like the last ship leaving the dockyard, but it had been one game too much for the fairytale ending; it was more like the last days of Disco (than Dicko).
So, another match to one day tell the grandkids about, even if there’ll be no silverware to accompany the tales. It was once said that, for all sides, in the moment of their greatest triumph the seed of their destruction is already beginning to sprout, and you could argue that on that rain-sodden pitch in Winsford the seeds for this defeat were sown when Convo failed to learn anything from the arrogance of Waterside. It would be unfair to say that they expected to win this match – although it’s hard to dispute that they had considered Croft the biggest scalp to take – but at times it looked as though only their opponents were willing to earn victory.
That Holland-USSR final in 1988 was famous for one of the all-time great goals from Marco van Basten, but even in relative terms no one was that good for Convo on Saturday, and that’s why Halkyn won.
Man Of The Match: None of the outfield players did themselves justice on Saturday, so the award has to go to Round. He made a number of fine saves to prevent the result becoming embarrassing, and couldn’t be faulted for either of the concessions – but what a time to score an own goal.
Convocation (4-4-2): Round; McLaren, Willis, Schofield K, Dickson; Kearney, Fairclough, Houston, Jelen; Schofield R, Lamb C; Subs: Edwards, Holder, Jones, Topping
Bobby Mimms reports
For the second time in ten days a semi-final ended with the outsiders having put in a fantastic shift away from home, to upset the odds and qualify for the tournament climax at their own ground. This wasn’t Bayern Munich weathering a storm against Real Madrid in the European Cup though, it was Convocation making a relatively comfortable navigation through the last four of the Sealand Cup, teaching the competition’s supercilious favourites from Warrington a lesson in the process – namely, that merely turning up seldom guarantees success. Later that afternoon, in the showpiece of the FA Cup, Liverpool had to learn something similar.
So make a note in your diaries: on Saturday the Geoffrey Hughes Memorial Ground will host the deciding match of one of the North West’s most intriguing Corinthian knockout competitions, this year pitting the local darlings Convo, against those dragons from the land of Terry “I’m in the final now, you know” Griffiths, Halkyn. The hosts, who will emulate the Bavarian giants by gate-crashing their own party, will be looking to recreate their finest hour from 2009 when, as at the weekend, they played the underdog card to perfection in vanquishing a disagreeable and arrogant adversary (albeit back then, in the final rather than the semi); their opponents, on the other hand, will have their own demons to banish, having fallen at the final hurdle so often over the last decade. It would be a surprise if this year’s showpiece is as confrontational as it was on that rain-sodden afternoon in Winsford, but as Convo’s semi-final during that campaign (at Halkyn) so poignantly proved, a vastly-ameliorated harmony between the combatants doesn’t necessarily mean that the match will be any less demanding.
It’ll be a repeat of the group game the teams played against each other several weeks back, a 7-4 victory for the Wyncote side that will no doubt have their opponents craving revenge – not that they should need any more motivation than the thought of finally getting their hands on the shield. It would be a mistake to look for portents amongst the entrails of that encounter on the first weekend of the tournament though, as Convo’s ranks had been swelled by their First Team’s lack of a fixture, while Halkyn were reduced to ten men through injury for the majority of the second half. A totally different affair is likely this time around, and a much more pertinent pointer towards the Liverpool side’s chances would be their performance in the semi-final on Saturday: bar a fifteen-minute spell when the enormity of what they were about to achieve clearly got to the players, they seldom looked overwhelmed by expectation, as their opponents always had. Convocation must now make sure in the next few days that they don’t sleepwalk into the final with a similar sense of superiority and entitlement.
There will have been no such disturbances to their shuteye on Saturday night though, as they surely dreamt the dreams of angels, unlike their beaten opponents; if, as is widely believed, the semis are the worst place to exit a tournament – so near yet so far, and all that – then the Croft players should have had very restless nights indeed, because they let themselves down badly. They had every right to be optimistic of progression before kick off, what with having already done the double over their guests this season, but as your correspondent has pointed out so often in the past, there is a big difference between confidence and overconfidence, and if you plump for the latter you are usually setting yourself up for a fall. Confidence is the running mate that will sling you over its shoulder when you’re flagging with the winning line in sight; overconfidence is the fickle friend that will desert you if you trip in the first hundred yards.
Although occasionally with good reason, Convocation have been underestimated many times before, and you only had to look at the body language of the Croft players as they warmed up on Saturday – all grins and cockiness; laughing assassins waiting to get the chore over and done with so that they could concentrate on the real business (a certain former Convo player being one of the most obvious culprits) – to see that it was happening again. By half time though, as the reality of the contest began to dawn on them, their guests having failed to roll over and have their bellies tickled, the usual humourless gimps that everyone’s come to know and loathe were much more in evidence.
They were a little fortunate to reach the break with the game goalless, as Convocation had created a number of good chances to take a lead, whilst they themselves had only had one half-decent effort on target – a snap-shot straight at ‘keeper Ian Mitchell on the ten-minute mark, after Joel Jelen had rather carelessly gifted them possession just outside of his penalty area. A quarter of an hour later they fired well wide of the Convo goal from a similar position, and moments after that the visitors’ Ben Prince and Andy McLaren both took it in turn to slice clearances high into the Cheshire air, one after the other, inadvertently setting up an opponent to try an ambitious overhead kick when the ball came back down to Earth the second time. From fifteen-or-so yards out though, that also gave its intended target a wide berth, and with it went Croft’s meagre menace for the half.
Donning a new green-and-white hooped strip (think of Glasgow Celtic, but with the white more prominent) they’d found themselves on the back foot almost immediately after getting the game underway – at half past twelve, so as not to clash with events at Wembley – and though Chris Lamb’s second-minute shot from distance was of more concern to the parents in the playground behind the goal than to its custodian, it was an early warning for the home side that Convo weren’t there just to make up the numbers.
Lamb’s partner up front, Richy Schofield, sent Jelen clear past the Croft back line five minutes after that, but having exhibited the first touch of a serial killer it was all that the midfielder could do to retrieve the ball before any opponents got to it and, rather fortuitously, knock it back into the path of Schofield. At first it looked as though the forward, steaming in from the left, had smashed his first-time shot miles wide of the target, which would have been an astonishing miss for a player who has found the back of the net twenty-seven times already this season. That the Croft goalkeeper had actually made a great save only became clear when the man in black awarded a corner, and though not requiring the same level of acrobatics, the #1 still had to be in the right place at the right time at the resulting dead ball to then pluck Richy Houston’s bullet header out of the air from underneath his crossbar.
Better eyesight than your correspondent he may have had, but come the final whistle it was clear that the referee was a bit of a rum character. Unable to muster up an authentic official, those in charge of arranging the match had persuaded one of their own players to don the sable, and though you could see that he was trying to remain impartial, his everyday loyalties couldn’t help but materialise occasionally. In fairness, for the majority of the time he was equally poor for both teams, but it just seemed that whenever he blighted the visitors with duff decisions they were building up a head of steam or in the middle of a promising move.
He certainly had no intentions of clamping down on the agricultural side of Croft’s performance. Not content with being the favourites to win fairly (especially so in their own minds), the home side seemed determined to give their opponents a good kicking as well, safe in the knowledge that anything less than death by misadventure would go unpunished by their stooge. Kevin Schofield received a particularly gruesome challenge from behind midway through the half, but once play recommenced after a minute-or-two of the Convo man rolling around performing a ‘this may need an amputation’ leg clutch, the perpetrator – the #4, ‘Basher’ – then went and nearly took the foot off Richy Schofield. Had either or both men been crocked Convo would have had no more recompense than a couple of innocuous free kicks in the middle of the pitch.
It was a bit of a risk targeting the younger Schofield as he had a right old funk on and spent the entire game picking fights and arguments with anyone who displeased him, particularly if they were donning the same red-coloured shirt as his own. Despite Convo being well on top the forward couldn’t help but moan (to put it mildly), railing against perceived inadequacy in the team regardless of how ridiculous his unreasonable stance frequently appeared: at one point left-back Andy Willis played a fantastic forty-yard pass to within a few feet of him, only to receive a furious tirade of abuse for his trouble once Schofield had failed to control the ball. Only when the personal gratification of scoring was on the cards – such as when he forced another good save out of the Croft ‘keeper, at a Houston free kick – did his grousing abate, otherwise his was an ill-disciplined display of solipsism that John Terry would’ve been proud of.
Worse still, in the closing minutes of the half his behaviour threatened to rub off on that notorious glimflash Willis. A quite glaring foul on Chris McNally right in front of the Convocation bench was waved away by the partisan ref, but as Schofield (R) made his feelings felt from across the other side of the pitch, a red mist started to descend in the left back’s zone of influence as he accepted the decision in his usual calm and philosophical manner: yelling at the official that he was a “blind cunt”, Willis launched into a two-footed challenge on the next opponent lucky enough to receive the ball in his vicinity, and it just so happened to be Mark Done. Showing an agility that he usually keeps well hidden, the Croft man managed to leap out of the way of his erstwhile colleague’s attempted hatchet job, but in blatantly chuckling at the failed effort to maim him Done only wound his adversary up further; in passing the ball – and as a bonus, finding a team mate – before Willis could get back off the ground and into his stride, he did himself a big favour.
Just ahead of the Convo hot-head during that first period, McNally had put in a typical water-carrying performance along the left flank, and had even been played through almost one-on-one after a quarter of an hour, only to come up short when an obvious paucity of confidence gave a number of defenders time to get back and crowd him off the ball. Jon Kearney had eked out that chance with an excellent defence-splitting pass, but had otherwise been a little anonymous in the first forty-five minutes (with centre-mid partner Houston constantly wandering, there often appeared to be a gaping hole in the middle of the Convo line-up), albeit making a very timely appearance to put in a necessary block inside his own penalty area, just before the break – which arrived after only thirty seconds of injury time (a seemingly pointless fact that became relevant at the end).
Showing a flagrant disregard for the concept of irony, Richy Schofield spent the majority of the interval assuring his colleagues that there was “no need to scream and shout” and warning them that they were in danger of “losing their heads” – praise from Caesar indeed – a team talk that had the effect of leaving everyone questioning their will to live, while dousing any enthusiasm for what lay ahead. McLaren, who had looked as uncomfortable as a polar bear in the Sahara at times before the break, made a couple of recalibrations for the restart, bringing on Simon Holder for himself and Steve Jones for McNally (shifting Kearney out to the wing), but nobody, of either persuasion, could inject any urgency into the opening movements of the second stanza.
It took nearly ten minutes before the nervous stalemate was overcome, but for the visitors the wait turned out to be worth it. From about fifteen yards inside his own half Kevin Schofield – still alive despite his earlier death throes – played a most incisive through ball for Lamb to run onto, and with the Croft back line trailing in his wake the forward placed a shot across the lime green-shirted ‘keeper from just inside the penalty area, and into the net via the back post. Although most of the Convo players had done well to retain their sangfroid and play their own game in the testing circumstances, their unabashed jubilation after the goal betrayed what they really felt at landing a chastening blow to their opponents’ egos.
Lamb should really have made it two, minutes later, when he was again played clear beyond the home side’s rearguard, but the unkempt surface played havoc with the ball’s momentum and after a bobble or two the danger was cleared by a retreating defender. Not long after that Kearney set himself up with a great chance, only to fire a shot high over the crossbar, but nevertheless it was plain to see that, their cockiness having evaporated, the home side were wobbling.
So why, with Convocation clearly in the ascendency, the younger Schofield decided to reopen hostilities against his colleagues is anyone’s guess, but in showing scant regard for anything resembling team spirit he was in danger of undermining everyone’s hard work. The moaning about even the most trivial of matters started again, and with the forward not just wanting the ball at every pass but demanding it, you’d be forgiven for thinking that he believed even the Eurozone Crisis centred on him. Which was a shame, because like every other red shirt he was actually playing well – he just didn’t seem to be getting any satisfaction from that.
But in spite of all HRH’s shenanigans, as the minutes ticked by it began to look more and more likely that the only way in which Croft could possibly win was if Convo beat themselves. With Jones alongside him Houston was far less peripatetic than he had been before the break, and the two of them afforded their back line invaluable defensive armature against the home side’s increasingly desperate (yet no less doomed) ploys; at right back, Holder competently filled in the chink that the nervy McLaren had so often offered in his team’s armour during the first half, and with Willis, Prince and Schofield (K) showing just as little sign of footballing compromise, the whole effect was one of – new word – unbreachability.
No one, however, had counted on Twitchy Time. John Topping, unimpressed at having been left on the sideline for so long, finally joined the action in place of Jelen a quarter of an hour from the end of the half, just in time to see Red(-shirted) Kev try his luck from twenty-five yards out. That dipping effort dropped inches beyond the Croft crossbar, and the defender then fluffed his lines when presented with another chance, with a little over ten minutes remaining. It was a fantastic opportunity to put the game to bed, laid on for him by his brother, eighteen yards from goal, but with the glory there for the taking he choked and dragged his shot a foot-or-so wide of the upright.
That would be the last time Convocation got anywhere near to their opponents’ goal in normal time. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason other than nerves, they found themselves warding off wave after wave of Croft attacks, making callow mistakes at basic defensive procedures (a short corner being the most cringeworthy), and touching cloth every time a mid-range shot flashed narrowly wide of Mitchell’s goal; a rise in the humidity added to their discomfort, as did Richy Schofield’s refusal to give up the ball to anyone not sharing a surname. And into such a hellish maelstrom of uncertainty returned McNally, for the struggling Lamb.
With eighty-seven minutes having elapsed the retiring First Team captain must have begun to believe he had done enough to secure his side a deserved victory, as he limped off the pitch towards your correspondent and Convo’s only timepiece. Even as the players from Liverpool ratcheted up their headless chickens routines it seemed inconceivable that the home side could snatch something from the jaws of defeat, having done so little to deserve any kind of reprieve throughout the game. But then the two most recent incomers, Topping and McNally, got their wires all mixed up on the edge of the centre circle, and set off a passage of play that would lead to a Croft equaliser and temporary Convocation heartbreak.
Polite diplomatic etiquette was the last thing the visitors’ situation needed so near to the end, but no one appeared to have told the Chairman and the Secretary, who both left a loose ball in the middle of their own half for the other with almost Victorian-esque generosity, when a clearance to the suburbs of Manchester from either was what was required. Like an experienced Dickensian pickpocket an opponent swooped in between them to steal possession, and raced off with it towards the Convo area where the defence moved in to stop him... any way they could, if necessary. But with barely a glance up toward the target and without breaking stride he hit the ball from twenty-five yards out as though he wanted to kill the thing, giving Mitchell no chance. The ‘keeper just about got his arm above shoulder height before the shot crashed against the angle of his crossbar and post, striking it with such power that the rebound looped up over the heads of at least half-a-dozen wrong-footed retreating players and landed perfectly for an unmarked, inrushing Croft midfielder, who then leathered it back through the throng and past the off-sighted #1.
Oh, how close to genuine despair the Croft players – who are never going to rank much higher than rickets in their opponents’ affections – must have been. Pure, unadulterated relief poured out of each and every one of them as the net billowed, and they celebrated as though they’d won the match, tournament, and the National Lottery all in one; convinced that their chance had gone, the visitors stood around disbelievingly with their hands on their heads, hips or knees. Richy Schofield had a punt towards the opposition goal straight from the restart, although passing comets have probably been closer over the years, but at least it kept the ball away from the Convo goal for a few extra seconds – with their hosts practically overdosing on adrenalin, while they showed all the enthusiasm for the fight of something the cat’d dragged in, the final minute-or-so of the standard ninety couldn’t pass quickly enough for the away side.
Had the Croft equaliser come any earlier then it’s quite likely that the game wouldn’t have even reached extra time, as the visitors weren’t just wobbling by the end as violently swaying. In fact, it’s possible to posit with hindsight that there couldn’t have been a better moment for it to have been scored, as there wasn’t enough time after the restart for the revitalised home side to build up a head of steam (obviously, it not being scored would have been better), and the brief respite while the teams swapped ends allowed the visitors to pull themselves together again. As a result, not only did the home side lose a lot of the impetus the goal should have given them, but Convo went back out for the first extra period as though the previous fifteen minutes hadn’t happened.
Not as lame as he’d first thought, Lamb came back on for McNally at the restart and had a great chance to reclaim the lead for his side almost immediately, only to direct a tame header straight at the Croft ‘keeper when, from eight yards out, it appeared easier to miss him. That chance had been set up by a Houston free kick, and within ninety seconds the midfielder – who’d led half the chaps on a magical mystery tour around the arse end of Warrington on the way to the match – had also played Schofield (R) clear through along the inside-right channel, but, perhaps thrown by not receiving the ball from his brother, the forward smashed an early shot high and wide from just inside the penalty area.
Obviously having decided to take his frustrations out on the kids in the nearby playground as well as everyone on the pitch, Schofield fired another wayward effort in their direction a couple of minutes later, after Lamb had laid him on the edge of the ‘D’. The First Team Captain must have been momentarily in a creative mood, as just after that he went and won the free kick – described in your correspondent’s notes as ‘the most pitiful ever given’ – that would lead to their winner, when under minimal contact he went to ground rather saucily. From just outside the corner of the Croft eighteen-yard box Schofield crossed the dead ball in towards the back post, where Houston was surely trying to head it goalwards from about six yards out, but only managed to direct it down into the floor... and to the unmarked form of Topping. It seems incredible how, in such a packed goalmouth, one man could have found so much space, but as time seemed to slow down to almost nothing the Chairman made up for his mistake at the equaliser by stroking the ball to the ‘keeper’s left, as he guessed incorrectly and dived out of its way.
Once again the visitors could almost touch the promised land, but just as half-an-hour earlier their concentration wavered once they were in the lead, and their hosts had three good chances to peg them back again in the few minutes remaining before the turnaround. A horrible bouncing effort from twenty yards was just kept out by Mitchell, who in doing nothing more than blocking the thing had clearly decided he wasn’t taking any chances on such an uneven pitch; a similar tactic worked moments later at a one-on-one, although on that occasion (and not to take anything away from the #1) the player in the hoops almost certainly panicked and blasted the ball straight at the ‘keeper.
Inevitably the nerviness in the back line reawakened the critic in Schofield and he started castigating his defensive colleagues again, when encouragement would have made much more sense. But you might as well ask for the sun not to set as ask him to keep his gob shut when he thinks he’s in the right, and at one point Lamb even called over to McLaren to “sort it out, he’s going to cost us this”. It was sloppy defending that nearly did though, as right on half time of extra time the home side won a free kick that was floated into the Convo goalmouth, and though Willis headed the ball clear to the edge of the penalty area another Croft player struck a rocket inches over the crossbar. With McLaren in danger of going all Jock Stein on the sideline, the ref blew for a breather.
There was just enough time for Jelen to replace Kearney before the game restarted, which was a boon for aficionados of the more luxurious player, as five minutes from the end he could be seen doing stretching exercises whilst leaning onto one of the Croft goalposts with the game going on at the other end of the pitch. Although hardly a risky business in itself, his insouciance could have come to haunt his team if they’d broken from their own half, as the longer the game went on without a second equaliser the more the official’s favouritism and obduracy increased (he absolutely refused to believe any call in favour of Convo), and he would surely have had no hesitation in blowing for offside against Jelen if the visitors had threatened a killer third.
Lamb wouldn’t have been involved in any such thing as by then he’d hobbled off again, with McLaren – putting his heart problems on hold – coming on in his place and pushing Holder up front for the final seven or eight minutes. This though, was too much for Schofield (R, of course), and he showed his contempt for any opinion but his own by ordering Holder to ignore his vice-captain and stay put at right back – not what is meant by ‘the team picks itself’.
But while you could at least understand what he was thinking in trying to keep the defence unchanged for the closing stages, it’s impossible to comprehend what was going through his mind in the one-hundred-and-nineteenth minute when, moments after fluffing a gilt-edged chance to clinch the tie and almost paralysed by his own fury, he lashed out and volleyed a Croft player up the arse on the halfway line. Even Willis could be seen shaking his head in disbelief at the self-centred insanity of it; Schofield should have walked, but realising the potential for further fireworks and well aware that there were only seconds left, the referee – to his credit – told the Convo man to cool it instead.
And the ref was in no doubt of how long was left, because after a quickly taken free kick in the direction of the visitors’ goal, and – lessons learnt from earlier – a hoof half the length back up the pitch, the Convo bench began to inform him that time was up on an almost constant loop. But play went on. And on. And on. Every time the ball got anywhere near the edge of their penalty area someone in red would launch it to the furthest reaches of space, but still no whistle was to be heard, and despite the first one-hundred-and five minutes of the tie accruing less than ninety seconds of injury time, the second period of extra time headed towards its nineteenth minute.
The ball ran through to Mitchell in the Convo goal and, under pressure from an opponent, he naturally picked it up. But while everyone expected it to be dispatched deep into the home side’s half, post haste, he wandered around his area looking to pick out a pass with all the nonchalance you’d expect of someone who’d played flute music in his car on the way to the match, and if he knew what he was doing then it was genius. Croft, of course, are the Corinthian equivalent of Pol Pot, so their players had no shame whatsoever in demanding to know how long the ref was going to let him keep hold of it, while the visitors’ bench and half of the team demanded to know how long he was going to keep playing; knowing that he couldn’t penalise the ‘keeper without acknowledging that time was actually passing, the man in the middle waited for Mitchell to finally release the ball – after nearly twenty seconds – and resignedly called it a day.
For the fatigued visitors the final whistle brought relief as much as anything, as with each extra fabricated second it had looked more and more as though they weren’t getting out of this one alive (surely only the presence of a timepiece on the Convo bench had prevented the game degenerating into ‘next goal wins’). There were brief cheers and back pats alongside the post-match handshakes, but on the whole they were far too tired to do anything exuberant, while the defeated Croft players must have cursed the goal nets that they had to take down when all they wanted to do was skulk off to the changing rooms and lick their collective wounds. (Richy Schofield, meanwhile, was rumoured to have headed straight for New York, where presumably he planned to scale the Empire State Building and swat biplanes.)
So if ever there was a lesson in not counting your chickens then this was it, and as a result Convocation now have a chance of winning their second Sealand Cup in four seasons. Nobody can deny that they deserve to be there, as they were easily the better team against Croft and if they make no assumptions about the outcome – their defeated semi-final opponents’ downfall – then there is no reason why the victory shield should have to leave Wyncote on Saturday evening.
Play up Convo!
Man Of The Match: Everyone gave as much and more than could have been hoped for, but for the amount of shit they had to put up with in the process the award goes to everyone bar their angry centre forward. It’s only a game Charl.
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; Willis, Prince, Schofield K, McLaren; McNally, Kearney, Houston, Jelen; Lamb C, Schofield R; Subs: Holder, Jones, Topping
Bobby Mimms reports
Passing St Mary’s church on the way to the Hooton Arms for a post-match pint, Tim Jago spotted a notice board proclaiming rather proudly that death had been defeated and made the comparison with Convocation’s own banishment of Wirral Vets, which meant that they have qualified for the semi-finals of the Sealand Cup for the third time in four years. A failure to convert chances into goals could well come back and haunt the team from Mather Avenue though, as the other result in their group – Rhewl 2, Halkyn 5 – means that they were pipped to first place by the minutiae that is goals scored, and must now travel to Warrington next Saturday to face Croft in a game that will have the sponsors rubbing their hands together with glee and anticipation.
As an hors d’oeuvre, this week’s Super Saturday didn’t disappoint either. All six teams involved still had their destiny in their own hands, while, on the beach with their feet up, Northop Hall Old Boys knew that they would qualify so long as Croft didn’t beat Sandbach by a single goal (they won 7-1). Courtesy of their good win against Halkyn, Convo were in the enviable position of only needing a draw, although a defeat would definitely put them out; Wirral simply had to win. What Sky would have given for the television rights.
Under such sudden-death circumstances you might have expected the game to have been a little edgy, but on the contrary it was a thoroughly enjoyable end-to-end affair that at times made basketball seem like chess. The blue-shirted hosts got the game underway with the wind behind them and kicking in the direction of the Irish Sea, and after, what with hindsight would appear, an incongruously barren opening five minutes they had the first chance of the game with a relatively tame shot straight at goalkeeper Ian Mitchell from a mid-distance free kick.
Hardly surprisingly for the tail end of a season, the Plymyard pitch had seen better days: patchy in places, dandelion-strewn in others, and with a number of puddles in the centre circle (and as several huge dogs were led past on leads during the match, you wouldn’t bet against there having been shite around somewhere as well). But three times in as many minutes the visitors cocked a snook at its disappointing surface and played great passing football that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a carpet of a sward, starting when John Topping slipped his fellow forward, Richy Schofield, in along the inside-right channel to skin the red-booted Wirral left back and fire a shot across the face of the goal. Like Sam in Casablanca the chairman was asked to play it again, and sixty seconds later an identical scenario ended with just as much success, although this time Schofield sent the ball high and wide from fifteen yards out.
Justin Shanahan glided out of the back line like a young Franz Beckenbauer to set the same man up for the third of that trio of chances, playing a perfectly-weighted pass from the centre circle through a Wirral rearguard that appeared to be momentarily modelling for Madame Tussauds. The referee, donning black woollen gloves and looking a perfect specimen for an embalming, was pretty much level with the forward and saw nothing wrong with his run, yet yards clear through on goal Schofield suddenly pulled up inside the final third of the pitch to yell obscenities about being onside, much to the bemusement of everybody else on the pitch.
For a couple of minutes the sun made an appearance over Convocation’s right-hand shoulders (give or take ninety-three million miles), but otherwise the conditions remained as gloomy throughout the game as it itself was not. Topping and one of the Wirral players took a turn apiece to fire over their respective opponents’ crossbars, and then with Paul Dickson getting ready to make his first changes of the afternoon Mitchell was called upon to make a fine intervention at his back post by clawing the ball away from a prospective header that had goal written all over it.
It was Dickson himself who made way for the lone substitute, Simon Holder (who was only on the bench in the first place as he was late), but not before participating in an optical illusion in which everyone saw him moving across to challenge one of the Wirral players, but couldn’t work out why, even though the man in blue stumbled as he passed the Convo captain, he still left him for dead and managed to get in a shot into the visitors’ side netting.
Holder took up his place on the right side of the back line, but over on the left Andy McLaren was having a stormer with nothing getting past him. Equally as effective were Shanahan and particularly Willis, who won and cleared everything with the calmness that you’d expect from a bomb-disposal expert – he deserves the stick he regularly gets on these pages for his madness, but Willis can be a top-notch defender when his mind is on the job in hand.
Another tame half-volley straight into Mitchell’s gut turned out to be the Vets last effort of the first period, and once the ball had been retrieved Schofield had two more bites at the cherry, having mugged one of the centre backs on the edge of his own area – the first was parried by the ‘keeper, while the shot from the rebound was a danger to the low-flying easyJet planes that were passing overhead every quarter-of-an-hour-or-so.
Jon Kearney and Paul Fairclough were partnering each other in the middle of the park but were having strangely subdued afternoons, so Schofield’s wasp-in-a-bottle energy and his ability to be everywhere where he had no business being came in handy for once. But by the same token, when his team could have done with him being on the edge of a Joel Jelen cross (who’d been played in himself by the wandering Holder) he was several feet short of meeting the ball and another gilt-edged chance had gone-a-begging.
The ten minutes before the break were a comedy of errors, with move after move breaking down in the middle of each side’s half as the bobbly surface did have a bearing on what was going on. Then, ninety seconds before the ancient official blew for the interval – on the dot – Schofield returned Jelen’s favour and played him in on goal. But at the worst possible time the Convo man’s luxuriousness overcame him, and instead of just trying his luck at the one-on-one he attempted to dribble the ball around the Wirral ‘keeper – the result was not a recreation of Georgie Best at Wembley in ’68. A gloved hand slapped possession away from the red boots, a chasing defender leathered the ball to safety before his opponent could turn and retrace his tracks, and after a couple of ambitious launches in either direction were dealt with fairly easily an end was brought to a half that seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye.
Convo kicked off again, after a quick abeyance while the teams swapped ends, with the emphasis on ‘kick’ – Schofield just hoofed the ball forward straight into the welcoming arms of the Wirral #1; thirty seconds later he had another go from a slightly less ludicrous distance (somewhere between the edges of the D and the centre circle) and the thing was last seen heading towards New Brighton. Considering the number of goals he’s scored this season you can’t really blame him for trying, but as the draw and therefore time were on the visitors’ side they weren’t desperate to score. And surely, as the home side had to win, keeping the ball in play as much as possible would help tire them out as they chased it (obviously they can’t if it’s off the pitch), especially as they were now playing into the wind.
Nevertheless, the former First Team Captain kept up his policy of personal gratification throughout the game, with a thirty-yard dam-busting effort trickling into the arms of the Wirral ‘keeper on the hour mark, a poor effort flying high and wide when he had better-placed colleagues five minutes later, and the commandeering of a penalty he’d done nothing to win in the game’s death throws. Laughably, he screamed across the pitch at your correspondent to “make a note” at one point, when Holder had the audacity not to play the ball to him. Who says there’s no I in team?
He should have won himself a penalty forty minutes before the one he hijacked from Topping, when a Wirral defender climbed all over him at a Holder free kick – itself awarded when the taker was molested by an opponent on the edge of the penalty area – but the referee wasn’t interested, especially so when Jelen sent the ball hurtling over the crossbar from only a handful of yards out (admittedly he was slightly beyond the back post).
That third quarter was definitely the home side’s most productive of the game, and it was understandable that the longer it went on without them breaking the deadlock the more concerned and anxious they seemed to become. Moments after one of their players showed a lack of composure by firing across the face of Mitchell’s goal under the minimum of pressure, the #7 nearly knocked himself out when he smashed a header inches over the Convo crossbar at a bullet of a corner – it was like someone diving head first into the side of a car passing on a dual carriageway.
But the closest the red-shirted visitors came to falling behind and possibly choking was ten minutes into the second period, when the Wirral left flanker ran at their back line from the wing and eluded successive interactions with Holder, Willis and Shanahan – who all knew that any kind of poor contact with the player would almost certainly result in a spot kick – to put a cross in from near the byline. From such a tight angle it’s impossible to know whether, having lobbed Mitchell, he was trying to score or was merely aiming for a team mate, but what was undeniable was that had McLaren not run in and cleared the ball from under the crossbar for a corner it would have dropped into the Convo goal at the back post.
The home side had another shot across goal just before Schofield went a-Barneswallising at the other end, but moments after that, as big black clouds began to form overhead, the first rumblings of discord from within the visiting ranks could be heard around the pitch. It wasn’t time for the moaning to start; Convo were as vulnerable at that instance as they’d been at any point in the game and a frustrated bout of finger pointing could detonate an implosion. They had to concentrate on beating the opposition, not each other.
Their cause wasn’t helped by the fact that the stocky Wirral #16, who’d been as effective as David Beckham on Countdown up until then, had woken from whatever stupor he’d been in since the start and was bulldozing his way around the Convo half. Twice in a handful of minutes he had great chances to give his colours the lead, firstly when he blasted the ball high and wide from just inside the Convo area having been sent clear through, and then when he fired the game’s umpteenth shot across one of the goals, when McLaren left him unmarked at a cross to partake in a sudden penchant for pushing and shoving opponents, rather than defending against them – had the referee seen the Bear’s manhandling he would have been hard pressed to let it go unpunished.
If anything the pace of the game was becoming increasingly frenetic and the action began to swing back and forth like an out of control metronome. Either side of another Wirral high-and-wider, an unmarked Shanahan headed a Jelen corner (Convo’s first) over the crossbar, while Willis played the ball out of the back for Topping to flick it through for Schofield to go one-on-one, but like Jelen in the first half he couldn’t get the better of the opposition ‘keeper.
And then, with a little under a quarter of an hour remaining, the game was decided within one sixty-second spell. It began with a quite ridiculous dive in the Convo penalty area by the blue-booted #16 that, had the referee deemed a foul, would have been one of the tragedies of the season, and which thoroughly deserved the yellow card he knew he wouldn’t receive.
But before anyone could get too riled by the winger’s ungentlemanly conduct, Topping and Schofield combined in the middle of the park for the former to play Jelen through on the Wirral goal. The ‘keeper was quickly out of his area to intercept the pass, but having already shown on a number of occasions that he’d struggle to kick snow off a rope it was no surprise when he side-footed the ball straight to his opponent, whereupon Jelen wellied it back into the gaping nets from thirty-odd yards out.
Wirral visibly wilted there and then. As Dickson had predicted in the first half, they’d tired in the second, and had been running on fumes for some time; the thought of now having to find two goals in what little time was left seemed too much, and they knew the game was up. In fairness though, they carried on going and Mitchell had to make two routine catches – either side of Dickson returning for McLaren – to keep them at bay. And with less than five minutes remaining, Jago – a.k.a. Claude Reins (he’d been complaining that no one was passing to him despite constantly calling for the ball) – had to don his cape and make a fantastic sliding block to prevent that scoundrel, #16, from smashing a shot in on the Convo goal (admittedly it was the Scotsman’s initial missed header that had set his mark-ee up in the first place).
But apart from giving their guests a nervy last couple of minutes, a goal wouldn’t have done them any good anyway as they never got a chance to score a second. Instead, the closing stages of the game belonged to Convo, and in particular to Topping and Schofield. Ninety seconds apart, they both benefited from the other being poleaxed by opponents – firstly when an advantage allowed the Chairman to be sent clear through to shoot straight at the Wirral ‘keeper after his mucker had nearly been snapped in half in the centre circle, and then when the defence got its offside trap completely wrong and the #1 stopped Topping illegally inside the area, allowing Schofield to smash the resultant spot kick into the roof of the net and end any lingering doubts about the outcome.
Full time was called just over a minute after the game restarted again, but before the whistle there was still time for Topping to get in another shot on the Wirral goal that, like so many other chances on Saturday, sailed high and wide of the target.
With a dog standing in one of its windows (Jago asked how much it was), the Hooton Arms was the place to reflect on what a rattling good game it had been, and how the semi-final is unlikely to be played in the same spirit of good will. Having already beaten Convocation twice this season, Croft now stand between them and a final appearance at their own ground, and it’s unlikely that there will be much love lost between the two sides when they meet. After their demolition of Sandbach, and with home advantage, there’s little doubt that the Warrington team will be favourites, but Convo showed on Saturday that most of them are disciplined enough to stick to a plan of action in order to win a game, and a repeat performance next week can only be beneficial to their chances of victory.
Death has already been defeated, apparently, so there’s no need to fear those princes of darkness in green.
Praise the Lord!
Man Of The Match: Everybody played well at the weekend, but there were a couple of outstanding (in the literal sense of the word) performances. Jelen took his goal well, McLaren defended intelligently though still got subbed, and Schofield played with such brio that the two central midfielders could afford to have quiet afternoons. The nod goes to Willis though – he didn’t put a foot wrong all shift, won everything that came near him, and was the main reason that Mitchell was little more than a glorified ball boy.
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; McLaren, Willis, Shanahan, Dickson; Jago, Kearney, Fairclough, Jelen; Topping, Schofield R; Sub: Holder
Bobby Mimms reports
If the Convocation Second Team were playing poorly in a forest and a youthful representative was chopped down, would the opposition make any noise? (Irrespective of the fact that playing in a forest would be nigh on impossible) the chances are they wouldn’t; there have been many occasions over the years when the club have been served on the Corinthian circuit by players who could hardly be described as old hands, and yet the vast majority of those have passed by without a victorious opponent grousing sourly at their presence. Juvenescence in the veteran ranks is only an occasional necessity, and it’s even rarer for it to become an issue – the last time was probably when the loathsome Waterside kicked up a fuss after being pummelled in Winsford a few years back (and even then their grievance was more likely to be that they couldn’t catch the speedster in question to kick seven shades of shite out of him) – but on Sunday an disgruntled rival did feel the need to play the ‘age card’.
At half time in this respite from the rigours of the Sealand Cup, the Haroldians captain stormed onto the pitch with all the calm of a Bahrain Grand Prix protestor and took his counterpart for the day, Andy McLaren, to one side to complain about the boyishness of his charges. To be fair the unhappy chappy did have a point as three of the Convo line-up would more usually have been found zipping around for the First Team (and a couple of the others could hardly be accused of having their best days behind them, either), but you got the impression that there wouldn’t have been any fuss from him if his visitors hadn’t just been so comprehensively outplayed for forty-five minutes. People only ever tend to grumble about the age of opposition players when they get beaten – well beaten – and just as with Waterside when they were moaning after their cup final embarrassment, on Sunday it wasn’t the youthfulness of the Seconds that had been the vital difference between the two teams, but the egregiousness of their guests.
There was little really that Convocation could do about the composition of their line-up as, having already played and lost the day before, and this being a morning kick off, they could only rustle up thirteen healthy souls willing to acknowledge their existence; the only alternative was not to play. Those three ruction rousers, flush in the salad years of their footballing lives (and all having also played less than twenty-four hours earlier, for the Firsts), were Chris Lamb, Danny Leahey and Ewan Minter: while the former took up position alongside Richy Schofield in the home side’s vanguard, the latter two comprised half of the midfield quartet, with Jon Kearney and Justin Shanahan completing it. The back line was much more conventional, with Chris McNally and Kevin Schofield being flanked by Andy Willis on the left and McLaren on the right; behind them Keith Purcell returned in goal, and the two men waiting their turn in the sub station were, slightly ironically on the morning of the London Marathon, the two long-distance runners, Mike Edwards and John Topping.
The game got underway with a kick off, as per custom, and having lost the coin toss and been forced to change ends to play into the sun (which was actually shining diagonally across the pitch) it was the home side who took it; although quite blustery moments earlier, the breeze seemed to completely die down as play started. A clash of kit colours proved to be more problematic than anything the visitors could muster for most of the first period – Haroldians were in yellow and black, compelling their hosts to change into blue tops at the last second – and straight from the off they were forced onto the back foot, almost as if surprised that their opponents might try and attack them in the initial moments. With no apparent consideration for an alternative, Convocation’s passing was crisp and incisive, their movement relentlessly purposeful, and such was their overwhelming superiority throughout the half the ball didn’t get anywhere near their goal for at least ten minutes.
So considering that for most of the first period Convo played on a level several planes higher than God, and that at the interval they’d scored six, it was a little surprising with hindsight that it took them so long to really start troubling the scoreboard – the rearguard could well have put their feet up for the opening exchanges, but the attack only managed to score once before the first substitutions were made. That was by virtue of an outlandish piece of skill from Shanahan, who had ghosted through (what would become quite evidently) an atrocious back line just as Minter put an excellent cross into the penalty area, and as the opposition #1 advanced to challenge him the midfielder leapt at the ball and volley-lobbed it into the top corner with his instep.
Young Minter – who’d had his nose accidentally splattered across his face against Liverpool Medics the previous afternoon – could have had a goal of his own not long after that, when he forced the Haroldians #1 to tip a corner-bound effort over the angle of his goal-frame, but although Convo continued romping around their guests’ half of the pitch in a quite determined manner it was a little while before they made their pressure pay. Haroldians actually went the closest to net-bothering in that time, when one of their forwards slipped clear of the Convo back line and dinked the ball over the advancing Purcell, only for his effort to drift just wide (the shot was accompanied by the call of the scoundrel: “Gerrin’!”), but otherwise for most of the half they were about as threatening as a Hare Krishna on ecstasy.
Possibly for no other reason than to show the impressive Shanahan and Minter that they could do without them, the home side ran riot as soon as Edwards and Topping replaced them, midway through the half. Almost instantly Richy Schofield – who’d dropped back into midfield, with Leahey going in the other direction – made it two-nil when Lamb flicked a cross from the right wing onto him at the back post, and not long after that he netted his second and Convo’s third with a goal that nobody could recollect after the game.
His hat trick wasn’t long in coming, the decisive moment being all his own work as he won possession out on the left flank, drifted into the Haroldians penalty area, skilfully ignored Leahey’s calls for a pass, and blasted a shot across the opposition ‘keeper that went in at the back post. With Lamb also getting on the score sheet when he gracefully lifted the ball over the #1 at a one-on-one, after Edwards had played him in with a delicious reverse pass from the centre circle, you began to wonder whether things could become really ugly at that end of the pitch. The visitors’ defence was playing with all the authority of the New York Nationals and the humane part of your correspondent almost felt sorry for them, and wanted to make sure that they knew they were welcome to join in with the match whenever they fancied.
However, despite the enthusiastic little lad who was trying to run their line looking like he could probably have done better than most of his elders, at some point the Haroldians players must have decided that they weren’t going to get totally mullered without a fight and that they might as well try out that tactical notion known as ‘attacking’. The first sign that Convo’s tattooed passing hadn’t completely robbed them of the will to live was when McNally was forced into making a great last-ditch tackle near the Convo penalty spot to prevent a potential goal. But by the time one of their players ran on to chip the ball over Purcell from a tight angle, only to have the bad luck to see his effort strike the far post and rebound to safety, the visitors’ belated intentions were only too obvious as they’d already capitalised on McLaren attempting to play an idiotically ambitious pass across the edge of his own penalty area, with a man in yellow intercepting it and lobbing the unsuspecting Purcell from eighteen yards out.
Any chance of the mother of all comebacks ensuing was quickly nipped in the bud when Topping reopened the five-goal lead shortly before the turnaround. Convo had started to invite more and more pressure onto themselves and only a good save from Purcell, using his foot, prevented another concession within minutes of the first, but from that the home side broke quickly and as the Chairman sped into the Haroldians half Richy Schofield played a great ball to send him clear through on goal (admittedly, with a little thanks to the Haroldians left back falling flat on his arse in the 1920s Hollywood style, as he moved across to challenge). The Convo man kept his cool as he entered the penalty area, and rounded the ‘keeper to be faced with an open goal that he couldn’t miss, although everyone later admitted that they still thought there was about a 5% chance that he would. Things were starting to get bizarre.
Further proof that the game had slipped into some sort of alternative dimension of absurdity came in the shape of the referee, a strange little Uncle Fester-of-a-man who was not so much a black whistle as a tripping one. Oozing sarcasm out of his every pore, he’d made a big deal before kick off of ‘getting his [yellow and red] cards ready’, and even though everyone was fairly sure that he was only joking, it still wasn’t that surprising when he used them; the circumstances though, were. Mere moments after scoring Topping contested a loose ball in midfield only for it to bounce up and strike the arm of his opponent, so naturally he appealed for a free kick, but when the man in black claimed he hadn’t seen the incident, despite being less than ten yards away, the dumbfounded Convo man looked him straight in the eye and yelled “Liar!”. Seldom can a match official’s complexion have turned such a menacing shade of puce in so short an amount of time, and having ordered his defamer from the pitch the ref only backed down after much apologising and contrition.
There was still enough time for Purcell to make another save in the dying seconds, hooking the resultant loose ball clear with a go-go gadget leg before an inrushing opponent could stab it home, only for it to be then blasted back across the goalmouth (about a yard clear of the line) with nobody able to get a touch on it. At the turnaround though, as the understandably irate Haroldians captain attempted to deflect any criticism from his charges by making out that he was irate with Convo, it wasn’t only Ceefax that needed the last rights administering (even though the hilarious referee was trying to crack on that it was 4-3 to Haroldians).
Despite apparently having to play catch up, Convo began the second period without their two incendiary young forwards, Leahey and Lamb, and so Schofield (R) moved back up front to accommodate the returning Minter, where he partnered the equally returning Shanahan. And it was the latter who went the closest to further extending the home side’s lead when he forced the Haroldians ‘keeper to tip an effort around his right-hand post after ten minutes of the half. But apart from a McLaren shot that was about as effective as a North Korean rocket test – he was wearing his Dickson hat (boots?) by toe-bonging the ball straight to the opposition #1 – Convo seemed quite withdrawn throughout the remainder of the game, almost to the point of panicking at times (with a five-goal lead!).
It probably gave the annoyingly-tall visitors further misguided proof that the main difference between the two teams had been the youngsters in Convo’s model, especially as they themselves weren’t quite as bad upon recommencement as they had been before the break. They even pulled another goal back on the hour mark when one of their ilk barged his way through the centre of the home side’s back line to latch onto an excellently weighted pass, rounded Purcell at the subsequent one-on-one and then rolled the ball into the back of the empty net despite McNally almost getting back to clear before it crossed the line.
Even Ethel Grant from Florida – an apparently eternal optimist (i.e. a chancer) who tried to sell Convocation their old domain name back during the week – would have baulked at the idea of the visitors’ second goal sparking a full recovery, especially when Lamb and Leahey returned for the final twenty-two-and-a-half minutes. McLaren and the hat-trick hero Schofield were the duo to make way for them, with Minter retreating into the right-back berth, from where he cleared the ball off his own goal line at a corner within a couple of minutes.
Shanahan and McNally swapped positions shortly after the substitutions, with the former dropping back into the heart of the defence and the latter moving up front, from where he put an effort over the Haroldians crossbar almost immediately. The Mancunian wasn’t to be denied the goal his performance (at both ends of the pitch) deserved though, and with about ten minutes remaining he was played clear through on the visitors’ goal and placed the ball to the ‘keeper’s right, and into the net, from just inside the penalty area.
The remainder of the game was played out to the accompaniment of some shocking swearing (it had been rife throughout the game in fairness), with Topping’s protégé Leahey absolutely refusing to pass the ball whenever he received it, and in the final few minutes everyone was treated to one of the rarest sights in Convo lore, Purcell taking off the gloves to play out. It was Willis who swapped with him, and within seconds he was embroiled in an episode that needed the referee (at his bat-shit mental best) to intervene in, when a goal kick never left the confines of the Convo penalty area and a Haroldians player tried to nip in and score (there was a split second when the player in question, rather predictably, thought about calling into question the referee’s reasons for applying this law that he’d clearly never heard of, but Topping’s first-half ordeal must have given him second thoughts).
Aside from a bizarre spot of Riverdancing by Kearney and a great goal-denying block by Edwards (at 7-2 up in the final minute!) that was all the game had in it. As the players trudged off the peculiarly potholed pitch, with the midday sun seducing them into ideas of a long afternoon in the pub (starting off with tongue-in-cheek talk of Ben Prince joining Croft), no one appeared to notice that the referee seemed to just vanish.
From the cannon fodder that they are so often, to cannon balls on Sunday, Convo’s first-half performance showed that they can tiki taka with the best of them (well maybe not with the best of them), and was the perfect tonic to Saturday’s rather unfortunate defeat against Rhewl. They should now try to use their impressive deeds as an incentive to go and get the win they need on the Wirral next week, even if they will have to do so without the more youthful players that helped out in this one.
The only sour note from the game was, as previously mentioned, the visitors’ grousing about the composition of the Convocation line-up. While nobody wants to play opponents to whom they are clearly and inescapably disadvantaged, and as such the complaints at the weekend were understandable, it’s a little unfair that the team from Childwall should criticise a cobbled-together opposition when they will only play on Sundays; Haroldians don’t play on Saturdays for religious reasons, so when they play teams that do they should be more tolerant of the fact that their opponents will more than likely have had to get out two sides in successive days.
The irony on Sunday was that, so shockingly back where the visitors to Wyncote, the chances are Convo would have rampaged anyway with a team of old duffers. And Haroldians have proved in the past that they’re not averse to a good old moan, even when they are winning, so that hypothetical forest probably wouldn’t have been silent after all.
Man Of The Match: Minter was excellent in all of his positions, as was McNally, while Kearney had been admirable in his shuttling up and down the left flank throughout the match (especially so as Topping hadn’t along the other). But the nod has to go to hat trick hero Richy Schofield – it’s amazing what you can do from an office in Liverpool JLA, isn’t it?
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; Willis, McNally, Schofield K, McLaren; Kearney, Leahey, Shanahan, Minter; Schofield R, Lamb C; Subs: Edwards, Topping
Neville Cardus Reports
Convocation blew the opportunity to virtually secure their place in the Sealand Cup semi-finals after losing out to a determined Rhewl side. A mixture of poor finishing and bad defensive lapses were the main determinants of the home side’s downfall though to be fair to the visitors, after a horrible journey across the Runcorn Bridge, they did put together some decent football in parts of the game.
Once the visitors had arrived after being stuck on the Bridge for an hour, the game kicked off half an hour later than advertised and Convo lined up thus: Mitchell in goals; a back four of Dickson, Willis, Shanahan and Jago; midfield quartet of Kearney, Jelen, Fairclough and Richie O’Brien; with Richie Schofield and Simon Holder up front. This left McLaren, Kev Schofield and Jones on the bench.
The game got off to a fine start for the hosts. After only 5 minutes, Jelen hoisted a cross into the Rhewl box and to be fair, the keeper should have taken it easily but he spilled it straight to the loitering Fairclough who smashed the ball into the roof of the net. This should have been the signal for Convo to really grab the game by the scruff of the neck but despite some hard work, there was little cutting edge. Although a fair few shots were unleashed, they either were straight at the keeper or want wide. The Convo midfield worked hard and Richy Schofield ran the channels well but when chances were created, they weren’t put away. A good example was when a ball from Schofield was played across the 6 yard area to O Brien but he hit the ball with his studs from less than 5 yards out and it trickled through to the goal keeper.
Mitchell in the Convo goal had little to do except traipse on to the adjacent nicely re-seeded pitch to reclaim the ball from errant Rhewl shooting.
At the half way point in the half, the Convo round robin subs were made with Jago, Kearney and O Brien being replaced with Kev Schofield, Mclaren and Jones. Whether this upset the rhythm of what was a decent performance so far, I don’t know but an innocuous through ball from the Rhewl midfield as completely missed by Shanahan and as the Rhewl winger raced through and tried to round Mitchell, the Convo keeper brought him down for a clear cut penalty. Rhewl equalised despite Mitchell getting a hand to the ball.
After this goal, Convo upped the tempo a bit and some nice interplay between Jones and the Schofield boys on the right produced a number of decent chances; one shot from Kev skimming the top of the bar as it flew past the keeper.
The first half finished all square and the second kicked off with the wind behind the hosts as they played up the hill. The first few minutes of the half were dominated by the home team but again some slack finishing proved costly. On a number of occasions, players elected to shoot from difficult positions rather than to pass to better placed team mates. Jones in midfield was playing the ball around well and Kev Schofield on the right was creating a number of chances through some decent crosses or playing the ball into the channels for his brother and Kearney, who was up front.
Despite this pressure, it was the visitors who took the lead. A through ball was intercepted by Jago but as it hit his thigh, the ball spun up off his arm and the ref blew for a free kick despite the arm being at the player’s side. In any event, the free kick was floated into the box and should have been dealt with but in trying to clear it, a Convo player sliced the ball into the air and back towards Mitchell. He ran out to claim it but was beaten in the air by a brave jump by the Rhewl player and the ball went into the net.
The remaining twenty minutes of the game proved very frustrating for Convo. Some glorious chances were wasted, none more so than by Kearney who was only a year or two out and only had to nod “good morning” to the ball to score but only succeeded in glancing the cross from Kev off his forehead and wide. Willis, who had begun to maraud forward in search of a goal had another glorious chance to score at the back post but didn’t connect properly and the goalie got down well to save. Despite incessant pressure, the Rhewl defence held firm, their centre half and keeper dealing very well with everything flung at them. The frustration got to Willis eventually as his voice in the wilderness called out “lads………we have just got to better than what we are”. We do try Andy, we do try.
So a disappointing home defeat and all to play for next week at Wirral Vets to keep our interest in the Cup alive. Failure to win next week is likely to mean an early exit and could be the end of a very long era in the club’s history as it could be the last game in charge for Coach Dickson if his intention to stand down comes to pass. Would we really want his tenure to end in this way…?
Man of the Match: this wasn’t really a bad performance on the whole. Better finishing probably would have secured the win and the points. Nobody played really badly nor really outstandingly well but Steve Jones did most things right and linked up well with defence and attack and his hamstrings held together so he gets the nod this week.
Convo: Mitchell: Dickson; Willis; Shanahan; Jago: Kearney; Jelen; Fairclough; O’ Brien: Holder; Schofield R. Subs. Schofield K; McLaren; Jones
Bobby Mimms reports
[EXTREMELY CONTRIVED INTRO ALERT]
There’s a bookcase in the main bar of the Blue Bell Inn in Halkyn, and stuffed in amongst all of the old and obscure tomes lining its shelves you can find The Ups and Downs of a Lockkeeper, which is apparently a light-hearted look at a job that you mightn’t necessarily associate with caprice or absurdity; a pursuit that dovetails very nicely with those characteristics, on the other hand, is (and always has been) playing for Convocation, a team that is to predictability what Trenton Oldfield is to a hitch-free Boat Race. On Saturday they were up to their old tricks again as, just eleven short weeks after they were on the receiving end of a double-figure whupping at the hands of their Welsh hosts, they turned the tables one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and administered their own lesson in attacking football. But even if they hadn’t been so abject on their last visit to the little pitch overlooking the Dee estuary the University side couldn’t have anticipated, as they ventured further along the A55 and the landscape rose up around them, that there were goals in them there hills.
And for one special (not so) little guy there was a very profitable seam indeed to be mined – not since the days of Convocation antiquity has a player netted five times in one match, as Richy Schofield did on Saturday. He’d already scored from a free kick on the edge of the Halkyn penalty area when another, almost identical dead ball was awarded in the dying moments, and there seemed no reason why his rich vein of goals shouldn’t continue. As it turned out only the fingertips of the opposition ‘keeper denied his bête noire a double hat trick, but had the Convo man found the back of the net for the sixth time it would not have been undeserved – neither for himself nor his floundering opponents.
In fairness to the home side they just about matched their guests for most of the game, and it was only when one of their number was forced to retire with a head injury midway through the second half, leaving them to play out the remaining time with only ten tiring men, that the differences between the two teams were exacerbated. The poor guy had been sandwiched between two defenders just inside the Convo half as he’d tried to run onto a high bouncing ball, and though neither of the brutes – Second Team debutants Andy Grindley and Sam Hill – had meant any harm (or indeed, had actually fouled the Halkyn player, even though the home side were awarded a free kick by the referee – nice one Aidy), a crack of heads had gashed the forward’s brow and he had to be rushed off to hospital bandaged up like Terry Butcher in Stockholm.
Chris McNally offered his services as temporary ambulance driver, going some way towards repairing his karma as it was he who had flummoxed John Topping’s meticulously organised plans upon arrival at Halkyn (neither of the AWOL pairing of Paul Dickson or Andy McLaren had remembered to tell the club chairman that he was coming). After some hasty recalculations Convo had eventually lined up with Schofield and Jordan Bruce leading the line, Mike Edwards and Richy Houston in the centre of midfield and Hill and Simon Crockett manning the left and right flanks respectively. Keith Purcell returned to goal, while Richy O’Brien and Jon Kearney were the full backs, with the clock-face partnership of ‘Big And’ and ‘Little And’ – Willis and Grindley – in between. Topping, McNally and Ewan Minter started on the bench, with one of the lucky three donning Houston’s bouncy castle of a coat on what was a chilly overcast afternoon.
Halkyn, in white, got proceedings underway attacking the tent end and defending a goalmouth dotted with dog shit, but it was their guests who started the brighter. Such an influx of players usually associated with the league team afforded the Seconds an unnatural mien of semi-competence that bordered on the unnerving, and it took some time before passes that would usually have calamity written all over them stopped being greeted by hissing intakes of collective breath. The ball was played out to the wings (sans molehills) with great regularity, but the spine of the team looked especially sound: it would take the front two a little while to get going, but behind them Edwards and Houston had gained control of the middle of the pitch almost from the off, and Willis and Grindley protected their goal with relative ease (even though the latter was pushing his luck with a number of pressurised back passes to his ‘keeper).
But then just as it looked as though the visitors’ dominance might start paying dividends, Topping jeopardised their gathering momentum by making his first substitutions after only a quarter of an hour – it was risk that proved to be worth taking though. Bruce had had Convo’s first chance of the afternoon with a rising shot from the edge of the ‘D’ that the Halkyn ‘keeper had known straight away to leave well alone, but with the twenty-minute mark looming it was one of the newly-introduced players, Minter, who set up Schofield for his first, with a great cross from out on the right wing; the scorer smashed the ball into the back of the net from six or seven yards out.
The red shirts’ pass-and-movery continued apace for a little while without them ever threatening to extend their lead, but then a brief flurry of goals in a little under ten minutes (and more rhythm-breaking substitutions) left the teams all square at two-all. The first was a Halkyn equaliser courtesy of Bruce giving the ball away on the halfway line, and the Convo defence backing off to allow a dipping shot to sail over Purcell from twenty-odd yards out. (This week’s Golden Lob winning time: twenty-six minutes, thirty-three seconds.) The youngster [Bruce] made amends for his part in the goal though, by putting his side back in front shortly after the restart when Schofield and Topping combined well along the fringes of the home side’s penalty area, and the latter’s pass across the goalmouth had only needed a tap in at the back post.
The exotic melange of the league and Corinthian sides in Convo’s line-up was intriguing, yet their second concession was reassuringly familiar. Halkyn won a throw-in along their left flank, level with the edge of their guests’ eighteen-yard line, and the receiver took advantage of a mistake by Willis – imagine that – to swivel past him to his left and fire a shot into the top right-hand corner of Purcell’s goal from about fifteen yards out. If the defender was of the opinion that he could have done better himself he was never going to admit it and in another one of those paranoid rants from the fringes of sanity for which he’s so renowned he let rip at his goalkeeper, screaming that the shot had been “saveable”, while neglecting to mention that it had also been eminently defendable; at full stretch Purcell had actually gotten his fingertips to the ball, so other than growing several inches it would seem that there was little else he could have done to have prevented the goal.
Despite Convo’s dominance their hosts had scored from their only two chances and were level as the midpoint of the game neared, and it was probably frustration at this that had vexed Willis so (you wouldn’t want to bet on it though). But by the start of the second half there were clear signs that the bare Halkyn eleven were tiring, and their forays into the visitors’ territory became more and more infrequent while traffic in the other direction increased considerably.
Amazingly, McNally managed to defy even the bottom-of-the-barrel expectations associated with his ability in front of goal when, one on one with the Welsh ‘keeper, he nearly put his shot out for a throw-in. And at about the same time, Topping rolled back the years with an hilariously bad attempt to curl the ball into the top corner of the opposition’s target that, with any luck, might re-enter the atmosphere sometime before the end of the week.
However, amid such mind-melting profligacy Schofield just kept on finding the back of the net. He’d already side-footed a Topping cross into its roof to restore Convo’s lead, when he was sent clear through on the Halkyn goal by, ironically, McNally, and showed the Mancunian how to keep your head in such situations by leathering the ball past the #1 for his hat trick.
At 4-2 Convo looked to be cruising, and the game as a contest appeared to be over. Within minutes the home side’s diminutive forward – their best player on the day – was crunched and seeing stars (although he soon came to his senses and realised that they were just Convo players), and once it became obvious that it was going to require a bit more than a quick rub down with the magic sponge to remedy Hill and Grindley’s handiwork his side were reduced to ten men; with Halkyn having already lost a player to injury in the first period Aidy briefly threatened to abandon the game, until McNally rode to the rescue.
But in the moments just before the blood and gore, the home side actually rallied momentarily – or, to put it more accurately, they pulled an unlikely goal back through the doziest of penalties, conceded by a player who should have known better. To be fair they did enjoy their best spell of the half in the few minutes after Schofield had scored his third, and had built up a bit of a head of steam; on the advance, one of their players pumped the ball to the far side of the Convo penalty area from out on their right flank and a colleague chased after it in the direction of the corner flag, with Grindley in tow. It was a completely innocuous situation as far as the visitors were concerned and all the defender had to do was shepherd his opponent away to safety, but as the two neared the corner of the eighteen-yard box the man in red was gripped by some sort of utter delirium and he became convinced he was competing for the Webb Ellis Cup – only yards from the goal line he rugby tackled the player in possession to prevent a try… and then got back to his feet with a sheepish look of ‘Oh Bugger!’ on his face. It was a no brainer for Aidy who pointed to the spot almost apologetically, and though Purcell dived the right way and blocked the shot with his trailing arm (he almost dived past the ball) a save was obviously the last thing that his arse-scratching defenders had expected and they just stood and watched as an opponent ran in and tapped the rebound into the gaping goal, as the ‘keeper made desperate attempts to get back to his feet.
Purcell’s reward for his colleagues’ indolence was to be substituted within minutes, but his replacement between the sticks, Willis, would only see action once in the remaining twenty-five minutes as the home side’s stamina deserted them and Convo took complete control of proceedings. By then Hill, his socks rolled down around his ankles, had made it 5-3 having picked up possession in his own half and slalomed his way through the entire Halkyn team before smashing a shot past the ‘keeper from near the edge of the penalty area.
But like some sort of footballing Freddy Krueger, Halkyn would not lie down and die. With a little under fifteen minutes to go their replacement centre forward was given the benefit of the doubt by Aidy when he raced onto a pass through Convo’s shambolic back line (Houston had retreated into the rearguard when Willis had gone in goal, and was playing the same ‘several yards behind everyone else’ tactic so frequently employed by his predecessor), and although Kearney chased back while the rest of the defence tuned their fiddles, the Welsh player never looked like letting his one-on-one advantage go begging and slipped the ball underneath the #1 as he advanced from his line.
It seemed incredulous, considering how dominant they’d been, that with ten and a couple minutes left to play Convo were only a goal ahead. Matters weren’t helped when Crockett found himself ten yards out from an open goal only to scuff a half-volley into the ground, gifting a Halkyn defender valuable seconds to get back and clear the ball off the line.
Schofield calmed any burgeoning nerves within the team though, when he converted the free kick awarded after Edwards had been sent sprawling by a clumsy opponent on the edge of the home side’s penalty area; the scorer insisted that he curled the ball around the defensive wall, but from where your correspondent was reporting it appeared to go through a hole in its poorly constructed architecture (Ben Prince would have been appalled). The game was finally put to bed when he side-footed in his fifth from a mishit Crockett cross (Quelle surprise!), several minutes before he was denied a sixth in its death throws by the Halkyn ‘keeper.
This was a good win for the Seconds – very much a cathartic win – and it sets them up nicely in their bid to reach the semi-finals. And in this season’s truncated competition it also means that unless Halkyn turn out to be the group’s whipping boys, which on Saturday’s evidence seems unlikely, then maximum points in either of Convo’s remaining games should do the trick.
But for a while they made hard work of it. Although the home side battled well they were always second best to their guests, yet it was only when the Convocation Chairman stopped swapping his charges around with the regularity of Northern Line trains that they settled down. Of course, this being Convo that eventual composure might have had nothing to do with Topping’s tactics, just their atavistic inconsistency rearing its ugly head again (and you can’t rule out their opponents playing the last twenty minutes with only ten men), but as they navigate the choppy waters leading to the last four a steadier hand on the tiller probably wouldn’t go amiss if they hope to pass through the remaining locks safely.
Man Of The Match: You can’t look past Schofield. His five goals were reminiscent of Lionel Messi’s quintet against Leverkusen several weeks ago, and just like the triple Ballon d’Or winner he’s never won the World Cup – there’s just so many comparisons. However, it’s impossible to picture the Barcelona #10 succumbing to the ridiculous road rage that overcame the Convo man on the way back to Liverpool on Saturday, which must surely make him a better candidate for any vacant positions within the club that might arise in the near future… despite never having heard of them.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; O’Brien R, Willis, Grindley, Kearney; Hill, Edwards, Houston, Crockett; Bruce, Schofield R; Subs: Minter, McNally, Topping
Bobby Mimms reports
…And then someone mentioned Jeremy Thorpe – manna from heaven for Paul Dickson.
The mood in the Storrsdale after this 5-0 defeat (a scoreline that actually flattered Convo a little) had hardly been morose, but the mention of everyone’s favourite homo...cidal Liberal Party leader brought renewed cheer to proceedings, especially when the Second Team Captain reminisced about that Sun newspaper headline at the time of Thorpe’s trial at the Old Bailey for the attempted murder of his ex-lover Norman Scott. The general camaraderie within the ranks, both in the pub and during the earlier defeat, was much more like the pleasant and relaxed spirit expected when playing on the Corinthian circuit, and a vast improvement on the destructive moaning that has been creeping into the game in recent times, culminating in the unsavoury scenes in last week’s 9-0 loss to Ramblers; the self-enforced absence of Kevin Schofield (amusingly described by one club elder as a strike of the “Sulking Defenders’ Union” – his usual co-culprits who did play against St Martin’s presumably being ‘scabs’) almost certainly contributed to the companionable atmosphere.
Having said that though, there still hadn’t been that much to be happy about on the pitch, as despite having a cast of thousands at their service Convo were easily brushed aside by a young St Martin’s side that were just too good. Even with an influx of youthful players of their own, there was seldom a sense that the home side might get something from the game – played, unusually, on the blossom-covered cricket pavilion pitch – regardless of the improved team morale, especially as right from the start they seemed unable to convert their chances.
With the First Team not having a game Dickson found himself with seventeen players at his disposal (an eighteenth player would eventually be used in the second half, having turned up unannounced), a situation that would involve enough computations to put Alan Turing on standby (if he hadn’t been dead for sixty years). The eleven he chose from the plethoric ranks to start the game consisted of Ian Mitchell in goal ahead of a back four of Jon Kearney (left), Andys Willis and Grindley, and the Captain himself at right back. Old hands Justin Shanahan and Simon Holder can just about remember when they used to play regularly for the Seconds’ feeder team – the Firsts – and paired up in the centre of midfield, with Paul Fairclough to their left and Matty Coleman to the right, while up front Joel Jelen and Richy Houston were the first to take the game to St Martin’s.
It only took the visitors from Fazakerley (who appeared to be wearing the old Wimbledon kit) seven minutes to take the lead, but they might well have been in front in half of that time after Willis conceded a corner that was taken short, and the hooped sock of a St Martin’s player managed to reach the eventual low cross before any one else, only to fire the ball over the crossbar. It was almost a dry run for the subsequent goal, but when Willis conceded the next corner it was played deep to the far post before being nutted back towards the penalty spot where a second blue-shirted player managed to get enough power on his own header to find the back of the net, despite Mitchell getting his fingers to the ball. Such was the neck strength needed to score from where he did, you could almost hear the watching defence thinking: “ooh, that deserves a goal”.
Moments after the restart the Convo #1 was called into action again, making a good saving block after an opponent had waltzed past Kearney as though he wasn’t there.
It’s fair to say that the hosts’ defence had not started to the best of their ability, and for the majority of the first period just ‘coping’ was the most that they could manage to attain. So some slalom-esque jiggery pokery from Dickson of all people was just asking for trouble – fortunately for Convo he somehow managed to pull the trick off – and it can only have enhanced Grindley’s decision to never again pass to the Second Team Captain, a ploy usually reserved for the back line’s sulking shop steward. Their stock hardly rose when the visitors went on to break down their left flank and pull a cross back from the byline, which was headed just over the home side’s crossbar by a colleague, despite the goalmouth being full of red-shirted defenders.
It wasn’t all one-way traffic though, and by the time St Martin’s made it two, about twenty minutes before the interval, Convocation had had a couple of opportunities to pull a goal back of their own. Holder had played a great cross-field pass to Coleman at one point, as they’d broken upfield from being encamped in their own third of the pitch, but when the winger had set up Jelen to go one-on-one with the opposition ‘keeper (with the outmanoeuvred defenders optimistically calling for offside) the forward was denied by a good save from the leg of the #1 – a ‘finish’ straight out of the Willis textbook.
Shortly after that Fairclough volleyed an effort over the visitors’ crossbar from about fifteen yards out, in what would turn out to be the last action before a slight lull in proceedings that was only ended by St Martin’s scoring their second. That was at an in-swinging corner, and was headed in under the minimum of opposition at the back post.
That was the cue for Dickson to fire up the Enigma machine and make his first substitutions, and understandably he staggered them into two lots of three: firstly, he made way himself for Carbon Dating’s John Flamson, while Chris McNally and Richy O’Brien came on in straight swaps for Willis and Fairclough respectively; ninety seconds later Danny Leahey and First Team Captain Chris Lamb replaced Jelen and Houston up front, and James White came on for Shanahan at centre-mid.
Meanwhile, in between the two lots of changes Convo had won a free kick just outside the visitors’ penalty area, and though the ineffectual Holder had tried his luck, he had the bad luck of McNally managing to get in the way of his effort, although the Mancunian’s deflection actually forced the goalkeeper into pushing the ball around a post. From the subsequent corner the imminently-replaced Houston headed the thing just over the bar under pressure.
Convo finished the half well, hemming their guests into their own final third with plenty of pressure and numerous throw-ins and corners, yet only one Lamb volley from just outside the penalty area (created by White) went anywhere near pulling a goal back (it was just over the bar). Instead, St Martin’s could easily have made it three just before the teams swapped ends when Grindley pulled an opponent back on the edge of the Convo penalty area and the visitors played a surprise free kick along the eighteen-yard line, rather than shoot, with the recipient firing an effort just wide of the target as the Convo players tried to adjust to the unexpected circumstances.
With Dickson’s brain still cooling down from the efforts of the earlier substitution frenzy, half time came and went with the line-up on the pitch remaining unchanged. Having already been accused of “not knowing what’s for tea” by the Convocation captain, the young referee managed to turn himself into everybody’s scapegoat with a couple of awful non-decisions just after the restart, one at either end. Leahey, Lamb and Coleman pinged the ball around between them until the former was sent clear through on the visitors’ goal despite being several yards offside, but when he dinked an effort over the opposition goalkeeper only for it to be cleared before it could cross the line the visitors broke up the other end of the pitch and were allowed to play one of their ilk one-on-one with Mitchell, even though he was just as offside. The fortunate advantage came to nothing though, as the individual in question scuffed his effort wide of the target, with everyone else in lukewarm pursuit.
Despite that, the third quarter of the game was surely Convocation’s best period of the match. In midfield White and Holder showed signs of a beautiful partnership being formed (seeing as they’ll probably never play together again – that’s how Convo works you see), while up front Lamb and Leahey have proven in the past that they’re a handful for anyone, even when, or perhaps especially when, the former is having his gravity problems. At the back ex-Chairman Flamson was the one catching the eye, playing his first game as a sixty-year old apparently (or as a sexagenarian – when he pointed this out in the Storrsdale he was told that he could get cream for it), while the accident-waiting-to-happen dream team of McNally and Grindley were rather boringly managing not to do anything to outrageous or outlandish.
Already in an unenviable position, the referee made a metaphorical ‘ah to hell with this’ sort of decision with a little over half-an-hour remaining, awarding the home side a free kick about twenty yards from goal when Lamb quite clearly tripped over his own feet – it’s fair to say that the St Martin’s players were not impressed. The subsequent dead ball was taken by the forward himself, who curled it wide of the far post before turning on his colleagues (with an exclaimed “oh boys!”) as though they were supposed to get on the end of his shot, but with that, and to the accompaniment of the very Willis-esque complaint of there being “too much passing”, it was time to perm the substitutions again.
Only four of them on this occasion though, as Willis came on for Grindley – presumably with the sole intention of not passing – Shanahan relieved Kearney of his left-back duties, Houston returned in place of Holder, and Coleman made way for the old head of Fairclough, the youngster presumably quite giddy from his first experience of Second Team shenanigans.
Lamb continued harassing the St Martin’s back line, as he had been before the changes, although it was actually White who whacked the next shot just wide of the target from the edge of the penalty area, having been played in by the forward. Several minutes later though, the First Team captain was up to his old tricks again, crashing to the ground inside the eighteen-yard box under very minimal contact (and that’s putting it mildly), earning 5.9 for artistic merit from his team mates on the sidelines, and a curious utterance from the referee of “I should book you for that”, to which the only sane reply should surely have been ‘well do so then’.
In amongst all of Lamb’s exploits though, was another goal for the visitors. With Shanahan momentarily caught out by a shuffle of feet, one of the St Martin’s players was able to put a cross into the Convo penalty area that picked out a team mate – something the Convo defence were unable to do – and from near the penalty spot the second man rocketed a shot goalwards that crashed against the underside of the crossbar, bounced down and then out before Mitchell could even move. Although the referee couldn’t possibly have known whether the ball crossed the line, there were no complaints from the home side, and particularly the goalkeeper, when the goal was awarded.
The #1 easily patted down a fierce fifteen-yarder from the right shortly after that, but otherwise the main entertainment in the ensuing few minutes arrived courtesy of Richy Schofield, who was introduced to play (despite not being on the team sheet or even at Wyncote at kick off) to a cacophony of boos and cat calls from the Convo sidelines, and then Houston, who took umbrage with one of the opposition players and they squared up to each other in the centre circle. It’s probably fair to say that it wasn’t exactly Frazier-Ali, but it was another example of how the First Team regulars lack discipline – they’re easier to wind up than an old fashioned alarm clock.
With a little under a quarter of the game remaining the visitors nearly made it four when Flamson was outpaced along Convo’s right flank and his opponent burst into the penalty area only to fire his shot into Mitchell’s side netting. Jelen replaced O’Brien (who’d been making noises like a cow in labour whenever he kicked the ball) almost immediately, and within seconds of coming on played in the impressive Fairclough just outside the St Martin’s ‘D’, who then laid the ball off for Leahey, and he swivelled past his marker and forced the ‘keeper into making a low save to his left.
Despite being three up with fifteen minutes to go there was quite the whiff of growing panic about the visitors’ game, an increasing disorganisation that allowed Lamb, still gamely struggling on despite his ongoing battle with fresh air, to curl a shot just over the crossbar. In the time it took the ‘keeper to fetch the ball from behind his goal, Dickson made another couple of changes, returning himself in place of Flamson, while also sending Coleman back on in place of White.
Almost as though they realised that they were at the point of no return, the home side created a number of opportunities to pull back a goal during a subsequent brief spell, which could possibly have set up the chance of the unlikeliest of comebacks. Willis did what he does best and caused mayhem in a penalty area – take that as you will – when he got on the end of a lovely Jelen corner to the back post, forcing the St Martin’s ‘keeper into tipping his headed effort over the crossbar for a second corner that came to nothing, while moments after that Coleman was upended in the visitors’ penalty area for what should have been a clear spot kick, but the budding young Lester Shapter waved away the Convo players’ protests with nary a second thought.
Lamb went all Andy Carroll when, at a free kick curled in from the left flank, he managed to head the ball straight into the hands of his glove-wearing adversary despite it being much easier to score, but after that the game sort of ran away from the home side and they suffered a curl-up-and-die final five minutes, with the defence offering as much protection to Mitchell and his goal as a rabbit hutch would in a nuclear blast. Their guests made it 4-0 when a flick at a quickly-taken throw-in left Dickson watching proceedings like a man standing in the kitchen having entirely forgotten what he went in for, and having reached the byline the player in possession put a low cross into a colleague in the goalmouth who clipped a finish into corner of the goal.
Within about ninety seconds of the restart St Martin’s took advantage of another muddle in the Convo penalty area and some more part-time marking to make it five, with the scorer tapping home the rebound after a team mate’s initial shot had been blocked by Shanahan. The referee blew for full time immediately, although as he’d played five minutes longer in the second period than in the first (forty-five minutes to forty), you could argue that he’d been just as influential in there being a more accurate score line as the visiting players.
You could also argue that, considering that the visitors had a fair amount of youth on their side and weren’t encumbered by the constant (but necessary) changes in clientele forced upon their opponents, Convo actually did quite well in keeping the scoreline semi-respectable (especially after last week’s trouncing). Although fewer players would have made getting a bit of rhythm and stability much more likely, without the young legs and energy of the imported First Team players it could have been much worse, and against a team who are renowned for their high work ethic Dickson had nothing to lose in using them.
Back in the pub – as usual St Martin’s didn’t go back – the Captain informed everyone of Bill Rand’s success in getting his book published (Making the Island, under the nom de plume Liam Tamar), while of course lightening the mood with his recollection of Scott of the Arse Antics.
Man Of The Match: On an afternoon of tired fare and tiresome plenty, it goes to Dickson for somehow managing to cram everyone in.
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; Kearney, Willis, Grindley, Dickson; Fairclough, Shanahan, Holder, Coleman; Jelen, Houston; Subs: Flamson, McNally, O’Brien R, Lamb C, Leahey, White, Schofield R
Bobby Mimms reports
If you’d walked past Wyncote at about seven o’clock on Saturday evening it would have been easy to forget that there’d been a massacre there earlier in the day. The sun that’d bathed south Liverpool in its warmth all week had not long since dipped behind the edifice of the nearby Tesco and the buildings beyond it on Rose Lane, and without a cloud in sky a crescent moon was clear to see beside the unmistakable pin prick of Venus. It was impossible not to be overcome by the beauty of the place’s glowing expanses and, if you could ignore the perpetual traffic rumbling past on Mather Avenue, its spiritual quietude. It was all such a contrast to several hours beforehand.
The massacre back then had been a figurative one, of course; a footballing one, with muscles pulled rather than innards disembowelled. But sadly, it was also one in which team spirit had once again been slain. This was no glorious Charge of the Light Brigade or senseless slaughter on the Somme, but an indiscriminate slaying of innocents, before the assassins had turned their weapons on themselves. And sadly, like the crimes of those angst-ridden teenage gunmen that are becoming synonymous with High Schools across America, Saturday’s shenanigans were an all-too-familiar story.
There seemed to be an edgy, paranoid mood within the team, even before the worst kept secret within the club – Captain Paul Dickson’s imminent abdication – was leaked in the changing room before the game. After that, with a number of self-obsessed heir apparents subconsciously staking their claims to his throne (so to speak) in some sort of vulturine popularity contest, it only needed a spark for all of the long-buried cliques and rivalries to explode to the fore, and a couple of early goals in the game did the trick there. But while the usual suspects slipped effortlessly into their peacock routines and went through their supercilious party pieces, others hurled brickbats around the pitch like confetti, and the whole internecine freak show threatened to get seriously out of hand. It was all most unedifying.
Hardly surprisingly amid such anarchy the visitors to Wyncote ran amok, but then again there’s a good chance that they’d have done so anyway. They were vastly superior to their hosts, both in ability and fitness, and it was obvious within minutes of the game starting what the outcome would be; the only real surprise was that Ramblers didn’t score more than they actually did. Later on in the Storrsdale one of their players readily admitted that they were their clubs’ fourth team in name only, although he then tried to downplay the unashamed deception by pointing out that only one of their number was under thirty – presumably the rest were all born in ’81. But such was the corrosive frame of mind that had infected the home side, the ephebes could all have been in their sixties and still stood a good chance of winning.
With bonhomie in short supply and the over-inflated egos of Convo’s superstars about to be pricked by a footballing lesson from their betters, the last thing the game needed was a teenage referee. It hasn’t gone unnoticed over the years that those who spend their working week in the company of the impressionable often feel obliged on a Saturday to bully officials fortunate enough to still have their youthful good looks – there’s something rather Freudian about it – so it was sadly predictable that despite all of the fighting amongst themselves, the home side’s intimidating elite still needed to sate their quarrelsome appetites on an extra victim. The ref actually did the home side a favour in the first few minutes of the game by disallowing a seemingly good Ramblers goal for offside, but it appeared to be the ambitious demands of the caterwauling defence rather than any concrete evidence of wrongdoing that led to his erroneous decision, and for his unexpected largess he got nothing but abuse from the benefactors for the rest of the game.
With twelve men including himself at his disposal, Dickson had opted to begin the game with the other eleven on the pitch (he’d actually had fourteen, but John Topping and Billy Lamb were offered to the undermanned Firsts on the next pitch). In the almost obligatory 4-4-2 line up, Richy Schofield and Simon Holder started in the advance, with a midfield quartet of (from left to right) Barry Wheller, Joel Jelen, Steve Jones and Tim Jago behind them, while Andy Willis and Kevin Schofield were flanked by Andy McLaren and Jon Kearney at the rear. Talk of the Wash House, Keith Purcell, returned to goal.
Attacking into the sun and towards the houses on Pitville Avenue (pitch #5), Convo had two great chances to take the lead before they overwhelmed themselves with their own squabbling and their guests made up for the referee’s early offside error. Holder was played clear through the Ramblers back line in the first couple of minutes only to rifle his shot over the crossbar, while not long after that Jelen at least made the opposition goalkeeper earn his fee by forcing him to tip the ball over for a corner – which came to nothing – when the back of the net had been so tantalising. Little did they realise it at the time, but Convo were in their only purple patch of the game and it would be all downhill from then on.
Jones lasted barely twenty minutes before one of his hamstrings went and he hobbled off to be replaced by Dickson (the elder Schofield moved into midfield, Kearney shuffled across the defence to partner Willis, and the captain slotted into his usual right-back berth), but by then the home side were in dispute and disarray. It was clear from the off that the departed midfielder and Jelen had been struggling to contain the movement and vitality of their opposite numbers, and as Ramblers slowly but surely gained control of the middle third Convo’s hopes of taking anything from the game suffocated concomitantly.
It didn’t help that certain players – let’s call them Andy and Kevin for argument’s sake – were having a full-on domestic while all around them started to turn to crud. For the time of year it was an extremely warm afternoon – the electronic scoreboard on the changing rooms proclaimed it to be 20º – and the heat seemed to seep into everyone’s bones and mess with their senses of toleration, so it only took the most minor of mistakes to stoke the internal fury in others; nowhere was this more evident than in the heart of the defence.
The wrongly-called offside was the first sign that the Brothers Grimm were going to have one of their afternoons, as they both knew that Convo had had a lucky escape and proceeded to try and shift the blame for the ultimately-thwarted move onto the other. But when the visitors scored two quite similar goals from the edge of their hosts’ penalty area in relatively quick succession, having effortlessly turned the yellow-shirted centre halves inside out in the process, the floodgates opened and from then on no mistake either of the defenders made was trivial enough not to need a post mortem. Even when Schofield was pushed into midfield after Jones’ handicapping, the two continued their game of petty one-upmanship.
Their behaviour was corrosive, and before long half the team were snarling at each other. On the sideline Dickson took umbrage with the fact that Purcell hadn’t moved for either of the Ramblers goals – making no allowance whatsoever for the fact that they were both rockets into the top corners that Brother Lee Love himself wouldn’t have got a hand to – and never one to take an undeserved bollocking lying down the goalkeeper proceeded to engage his captain in a full and frank exchange of views for the remainder of the first period. From his horse-high vantage point at the other end of the pitch Richy Schofield observed what was happening in his own half and decided to jump on the blunder bandwagon, putting the world to rights and pointing fingers at those he deemed to be underachieving, while even Kearney seemed to have been bitten by the bug and was growling at anyone who gave him even a sideways glance. Constructive criticism is no bad thing but on Saturday the players only seemed to want to find fault, and unlike in Allo Allo there’s no such thing as good moaning.
Dickson had lost control of his charges, and even after he came on for Jones – moments after the visitors skinned McLaren and crossed the ball into the box, where it was tapped home, unchallenged, for number three – he could exhibit no more authority than a lame duck; the lunatics had finally taken over the asylum, and the superintendent had checked into one of its wards. To add to the anarchy the players of both teams became embroiled in a running dispute over throw-ins and corners, whether the ball had gone out or not, and if so who it had last touched. Displaying all the spine of a paramecium the referee just left everyone to sort it out themselves, and you had to shake your head in disbelief at the fact that the lack of linesmen had become an issue in a game against the chaps from Crosby!
Convo weren’t just not at the races, they weren’t even in possession of the Racing Post. The most unrecognisable Ramblers team in living memory were running riot, and with their opponents far too intent on fighting amongst themselves it seemed as though there was little anyone could do to stop them. The combination of Jelen and Schofield fared no better in wresting back control of the midfield than the previous set up had had in holding onto it, while the defence was playing so poorly that you almost expected it to concede goals just by giving the players a funny look.
The visitors peppered the Convocation penalty area with long throws during the first half, and goals number four and five both resulted from the bedlam that ensued within the Playstation-operated rearguard as a result. McLaren and Dickson both left a lot to be desired for the sixth, as a Ramblers winger sped past the former at about the relative speed of pyroclastic flow before belting in a sumptuous cross for a colleague to head home, having left the latter for dead. Number seven, also emanating from the captain’s zone of ‘influence’, was a one-on-one chip that Purcell managed to get his fingers to but still couldn’t keep out.
Half time was a seething five minutes of barely-controlled rage, but while there was little sign of rapprochement from some of the most riled, and it was all that several of the players could do to stop themselves from self-detonating, something did seem to change. The second period was no less of a Rorke’s Drift, and Purcell spent nearly as much time behind his goal – retrieving off-target shots with all the urgency of a glacier – as he did in it, but Convo were merely outclassed rather than overwhelmed, and somehow, almost heroically, they kept the score down to single figures.
They also looked a lot more positive going forward: Jago and Wheller may have done a lot more running before the break (not bad going for the latter, who had already participated in a 5k earlier in the day), but after it their efforts didn’t seem quite so futile, and the two wingers won a number of corners for their team that, considering the previous forty-five minutes, almost felt like actual goals. Convo even thought they’d scored from one (only to have it disallowed as the ball had swung out of play in transit – pesky rules), but Richy Schofield did take and hit the crossbar with another midway through the half, which was a stroke of luck for the new Ramblers ‘keeper (who had donned the gloves at half time) as he didn’t even make a move for the ball, presumably thinking it was going straight out.
Their expeditions into Ramblers territory were still only brief respites from the seemingly-relentless onslaught, although for a while it looked as if all of the visitors’ domination might prove to be sterile as the greatly improved Convo back line held them at bay for well over half an hour. The closest they came to increasing their lead during that time was when they forced Purcell to flick a one-on-one shot inches wide of a post, but a couple of late goals meant that the home side spent the final few minutes – which were awash with the aromas of neighbourhood barbeques – once again battling to save themselves from the ignominy of a double-digit defeat.
A cross from Convo’s right set up a back-post header for Ramblers’ eighth, although Jago, who had sprinted sixty yards back to help out with the defence, complained that Purcell had prevented him from clearing the danger by fingertippping the ball off his head as he’d ran in to do so. And having conceded a corner with a fine save the ‘keeper was then also ‘at fault’ for number nine, deflecting the ball past Dickson on the line while trying to make a block during the subsequent good-old-fashioned session of goalmouth pinball – Damn him! Jago was particularly unimpressed by that goal, stomping back upfield after it like Biffa Bacon on a mission, describing the scorer as a “lanky twat” in the process.
The referee finally put the home side out of their misery – although you could argue that that’s all some people play for – by blowing for full time and rushing off to the Tesco before anyone gave him lines; the players, on the other hand, sloped off to the changing rooms in their own little worlds, oblivious to the team spirit being shown by their oft-maligned brethren on the adjacent pitch, as they beat top-of-the-league Old Xavs. And the irony of it.
Back before kick off, when everyone was still talking to each other, a near clash of kits had caused Willis to make a jokey comment to an opponent along the lines of “it’s not like you don’t turn up in the same colours every year”, but the fact was this wasn’t the same team that turns up every year. The lads who ran riot on Saturday while their hosts wandered around with their hands on their hips wondering whether a Schofield might ever again pass to someone other than a namesake, were far too good for this level and shouldn’t want to be playing the likes of Convocation. But even if they had been the more familiar Ramblers of previous seasons they would probably still have won comfortably, as far too many of the home side were an embarrassment.
On this occasion perhaps there was something in the air, because for once it wasn’t just the usual suspects. But on the afternoon that Captain Dickson – no angel himself at the weekend, don’t forget – created something of a power vacuum by letting it slip that he would be stepping down at the end of the season, the increased aggro within the ranks seemed too much of a coincidence; you have to wonder whether all the toys came out of the pram to make more room for extra posturing.
Whoever takes the reins will have a thankless job though, because performances like Saturday’s highlight just how wanting in camaraderie this team can be at times. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’ wrote Shakespeare, but surely he meant that a king should be wary of treason, not malcontents bankrupting his kingdom. And it is that insolvency of esprit de corps which threatens Convo’s Second Team the most, as the storm clouds of the upcoming AGM become quite visible on the hypothetical horizon – a disconcerting thought that even the actual beauty of Wyncote on Saturday evening failed to placate.
(One thing’s for certain though: captain material doesn’t mean taking goal kicks if you’re playing up front.)
Man Of The Match: Jago and Wheller kept plodding away on the flanks, as did Holder up front, despite seeing next to nothing of the ball. But it’s Kearney who gets the nod because he kept his head while all around him were losing theirs – even though he looked like he wanted to throw it on some of his team mates at times.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Willis, Schofield K, Kearney; Wheller, Jelen, Jones, Jago; Holder, Schofield R; Sub: Dickson
G.K. Chesterton Reports
As the Radbroke Hall players made their retreat to the ever popular car park at the Dog Inn they must surely have found it difficult to fathom how their visitors had secured the hard earned spoils from this niggly encounter.
The Barclays bankers had continually expressed their belief that they were the superior side, only to be left shell shocked by a 2-1 reverse following the sucker punch of two late goals.
Twelve players made the journey to one of the more opulent settings on the veteran circuit, as Convocation were once again able to indulge the theory that less is more in respect of their match day squad.
The Schofield brothers had been at the venue since 10am practicing keepy-ups, while on surveying the Downton Abbey scene Joel Jelen confessed his preference for an “urban environment”. Whoever heard of a Jew with horses? as Tony Soprano’s Mum once said insightfully. South Liverpool’s own Sopranos Paul Dickson, Andrew McLaren and Ian Mitchell were later able to provide their own weight of experience, with one of the assembled outrageously remarking “I never knew that car was so high” after they had vacated the vehicle. Andy Willis, who pugnaciously toyed around with his mobile during the captain’s emotionally charged team talk, was last to arrive, resplendent in “Why always me?” t-shirt.
It was hardly a stellar performance by the visitors. They will play much better and lose as the cliché goes. But you sense it was a game they would have lost in the past, perhaps even capitulated in spectacular fashion. Much of the credit for Convocation’s resistance must go to Kevin Schofield who, in the absence of his goal-seeking defensive partner Willis, essentially had to marshal the defence single-handedly as the Liverpool side sought an equaliser.
Despite boasting just a single goal advantage (which admittedly I can’t remember anything about) the Radbroke Hall players’ demeanour suggested they were assured of the win against their senior opponents. Of course this attitude is never complete without the laughable ‘sledging’ to accompany it. Number 23 was particularly culpable. Some of the hosts were even affronted when their needlessly aggressive play wasn’t taken lying down. One Radbroke Hall player escaped unpunished for putting his hand round the neck of not one, but two Convocation players.
Convocation’s passing was generally sloppy and the predictable petty debates ensued, but they never cowed under the pressure, footballing or otherwise. Their own troubling of the opposition goal increased as the game wore on and they hit the woodwork on more than one occasion, with free kicks played into the box a particularly effective catalyst.
The equaliser must have come with less than ten minutes to play. Justin Shanahan, played through on goal following a counter attack, rounded Radbroke’s third or possibly fourth goalkeeper of the day and eventually found room past an oncoming defender after what felt like an agonising age. Willis insisted on remaining as a third forward and this ‘overload’ tactic would eventually pay dividends at the home of the bankers as, in one of the last meaningful acts of the game, urban Jelen fired a slow motion daisy cutter into the bottom corner. It was a sweet way to win a game of football.
Man of the match: Several candidates were mooted for this but my selection would be Justin Shanahan, who rarely has a poor game and capped off a solid midfield performance with the all-important equaliser.
Convocation: Mitchell; McLaren, Willis, Schofield K, Dickson; Jago, Shanahan, Fairclough, Kearney; Schofield R, McNally; Sub: Jelen
Convocation (4-4-2): Lamb B; McLaren, Schofield K, Littler, Kearney; Anon, Schofield R, Topping, Stephens; Willis, McNally
A slightly forgetful Neville Cardus reports
As Ben Prince philosophically pointed out in the pub afterwards, this was “a really good game of football, with a proper score and everything” and this sum it up nicely. Convo often struggle against the Sandbach Vets first team but coming off the back of two victories, they took the game to Sandbach and in terms of chances and balance of play, it wouldn’t be too churlish to say that the hosts should have run out comfortable winners if finishing and composure had been better.
The hosts lined up with Mitchell in goals; a back four of McLaren, Willis, Kev and Timbo; midfield of Lamb, Jelen, Jones and Edwards; with Prince and Richie Schofield up front. This left an embarrassment of riches on the bench in the form of Horrocks, Topping and Holder with Dickson also strippeed and ready for action but deciding to save himself for the Carling Cup final and not play.
The first half was pretty end to end stuff but a lot of the chances fell to the home team but for the life of them, they couldn’t get the ball in the net. It was hacked wide (Prince); smashed onto the adjacent rugby pitch (Schofield) or powder puff (Jelen). In the meantime, the Convo defence were very well marshalled by Mitchell an Kev and looked very solid. The Sandbach number 7, who had looked a bit of a handful, kept swapping wings but the identical twin full backs of Timbo and Andy MacLaren gave him little change and after a while, he gave up.
The first swathe of substitutes included Danny Horrocks, for the unfortunate Steve Jones who pulled a hamstring, and his strong running further turned the tide in Convo’s favour but his finishing was also as inaccurate as his team mates but from one of his shots, Convo got a corner. Regular readers of this column can take a wild guess as to what happened now as from the corner, Sandbach broke away and for some reason, Convo had left two on two at the back. The Sandbach centre forward ran towards the Convo goal and just as Jago went to get a tackle in, the Sandbach player seemed to run out of puff and shot from around 20 yards out. The ball dipped in front of the diving Mitchell and took a horrible bounce, squirming through the despairing keeper’s gloves and crept into the net. This was unfair on the keeper who had been excellent until then and indeed unfair on the Convo defence which had played well.
The teams turned around with Convo one down but the team talk was all positive as the host realised that we should have been at least level pegging. So when the second half kicked off, Convo tore into Sandbach and should have equalised in the first minute but once again, the finishing was poor. Indeed, it looked as if players were actually trying too hard. When the goal did come, it was deserved though in true Convo style, unusual. After shooting and missing from virtually everywhere, Richie Schofield took a corner form the left. As it sung into the far post, the Sandbach keeper could only try to claw it out but the ball had crossed the line and the excellently positioned referee spotted it well.
Convo pushed on from this. Horrocks really bossed the midfield and played really well. The well drilled Convo defence allowed Kev to maraud forward Sandbach never really got to terms with his forward runs and in the midfield, the old (er) guard of Edwards, Holder, Topping and Lamb kept it solid, allowing Horrocks to get forward and support the strikers.
It was from one of these runs that Convo took the lead as Horrocks picked the ball up around 30 yards out and advancing forward, unleashed a shot from the edge of the area high up to the keeper’s left, giving him no chance. It was the least Danny deserved for his all round display.
To be fair to Sandbach, they then took the game to Convo for a bit and had a couple of chances which went close. They eventually equalised around 5 minutes from the end when a mix up between Toping and Edwards on the Convo left saw a Sandbach player get to the bye line and hit a hard cross into the area. The ball struck Willis on the arm and the referee, perhaps a little harshly, gave Sandbach a penalty. It was unlucky on Willis who had played well all afternoon. The Sandbach penalty was excellently taken down low to Mitchell’s left and the teams were all square and the referee blew for time just after.
Overall, a good result for Convo against one of the stronger teams they play against and with better finishing, they could have, and perhaps should have won. I suppose football was the real winner as this was a very good game, played in the right, positive spirit with a really good referee.
Man of the match: a tough one this as there were very good performances all over the pitch. The Convo defence were as good as they have been this season and the midfield players and strikers worked hard across the pitch. Special mentions to Kev who organised things really well at the back and made some great runs forward; Billy Lmab who put in a lot of work on the flanks and Prince who tried very hard but it didn’t quite work for him but he never gave up. For his overall work rate though, his willingness to get back to help out as well as making a good forward runs, and his well taken goal, this week’s award goes to Danny Horrocks. A great performance.
Uncle Bobby Mimms reports
Was it coincidence that on the thirty-third anniversary of the Antiques Roadshow’s first broadcast, Sutton Hoo’s Wirral Vets rolled into town to face Convocation? Of course it was – nobody in their right mind would arrange a fixture on the basis of such a mundane occasion (that has nothing to do with either team), and they each had to be playing someone – but nonetheless the juxtaposition of an institution that concerns itself with superannuated tat long past its best... and the BBC programme, was deliciously ironic; it’s only a shame it was the birthday of Fiona Bruce’s lot and not the far more fossil-heavy Time Team, as the mob from the peninsula really are a bunch of crocks and relics.
Everyone ages from the day they’re born, of course, so there’s little mileage in making fun of opponents for basically not having kicked the bucket (especially these opponents, who did once had a player die on the pitch during a match against Convo). But the Vets have hardly matured with good grace and are a team of curmudgeonly old buggers if the truth be told, once pointing out to your correspondent that the reason he played with team mates who regularly took the mickey out of him was because he was, to paraphrase, “too shit to play for anyone decent”. Speaking the truth may be virtuous but it doesn’t necessarily make you pleasing company, just as not being the really malevolent Wirral Vets – the Shaftsbury ones who always seemed to take satisfaction from bullying and hurting their adversaries, back before they dropped off the radar never to be heard of again – doesn’t make the Plymyard lot hankered-after opposition. Facing them is only slightly more appealing than getting a dose, and if it hadn’t been for that dead player it’s likely that they’d have long ago been removed from the Second Team fixture list like their namesakes.
Last week’s victory over Rhewl meant that the Seconds had a winning streak to defend (admittedly one in the most embryonic of senses), and it should come as no surprise to anyone that, having made the trip into deepest darkest Wales with only ten men, players were tripping over themselves to get a game on the team’s return to Wyncote. Despite the club technically being on tour in Cologne over the weekend both Firsts and Seconds were content with their lots numerically, with the Corinthian side having fifteen at their disposal, including a long-time absentee and living legend. Keith Purcell was once again in goal, behind a back four comprising of Ian Mitchell and Kevin Schofield betwixt the team grandees Andy McLaren and Paul Dickson (left and right respectively – and both wearing distinguishing red socks like officerial sashes). Jon Kearney and Justin Shanahan partnered each other in central midfield and were flanked by Tim Jago (l) and Billy Lamb (r), while Ben Prince and Richy Schofield were the vanguard’s first pairing; eleven starters from a squad of fifteen left four substitutes trying their best to keep warm on the sidelines.
Convo won the referee’s toss – as you do – and got the game underway playing into the sort of unrelenting gale you might come across on North Sea oil rigs, while a light (almost horizontal) drizzle added further inconvenience to the general discomfort of the players. Within sixty seconds though, the home side forgot about the stinging effects of the elements when Shanahan was sent clear through on the Wirral goal, and though the ‘keeper was quickly off his line the ball squirmed up high into the air from between their dual challenge and the midfielder was able to run on head it into the empty net as it returned to Earth.
Obligingly, the visitors failed to heed the early shot across their bows (or was it into their bows?) and continued to give the Seconds the freedom of the pitch for most of the first period. For once, the home side went for the jugular having sensed blood – rather their usual trick of coming over all squeamish and fainting – and despite having such a strong wind behind them it was as much as Wirral could do to get the ball out of their own half. Even when they did manage to do so they seemed charily reluctant to attack their hosts, and with just the one heavily outnumbered forward camped out near the centre circle the ball would only ever stay in Convocation territory for seconds. For the rest of the time Schofield (R) marauded around the sward like a man possessed (and got off a couple of long-range efforts that were never really a threat to the visitors’ goal), Kearney seemed to be everywhere without ever appearing to move, and Prince and Shanahan preyed on loose passes and weakened opponents.
Meanwhile out on the flanks Jago and Lamb were relentless in their exertions, and it was through the terrier-like movement of the latter that Convo doubled their lead on the quarter hour. For the umpteenth time in the opening fifteen minutes they won possession in the happy hunting ground between the centre circle and the Wirral ‘D’ and Kearney splayed it out to the right-hand side of the penalty area, and the veteran winger. His legs going nineteen-to-the-dozen, Lamb slipped into the visitors’ penalty area at pace and blasted a shot from about fifteen yards out that, though well off target, was right into the path of a retreating defender; sadly for him, his uncoordinated legs couldn’t help but redirect the ball past his own ‘keeper.
Everything that could go wrong for the haggard Wirral back line was going wrong, and their body language was starting to resemble that of the Arsenal defence routed in Milan in midweek. With a resignation that hinted at the Sisyphean futility of their efforts they would repeatedly clear their lines only for a sea of yellow to come oozing back like custard with the ball. Even on the rare occasions that their colleagues further up the pitch gave them a breather they were never able to properly rest, as defending on the halfway line was just as perilous as on the edge of their own area; that was proved when Prince was played clear through on goal and there was not a thing that the coughing and spluttering defence could do but watch as he shimmied past their #1 and rolled the ball into the empty net.
Things looked like getting rather unpleasant for the visitors at that point, but then Convo went and made their first changes and unexpectedly the tide began to turn. That’s not to suggest that the contributions of the incoming Joel Jelen, Andy Willis and Paul Fairclough were anything less than one hundred percent, but in substituting Schofield (R), Shanahan and Mitchell, the captain was removing what would turn out to be his team’s three best performers on the day – and all from its spine.
Overhead, the murkiness of twenty minutes earlier had been completely dispersed by the winds, leaving a gloriously cloudless sky behind, with the sun shining down the length of the pitch and into the eyes of the Convocation players; on the ground matters were no longer so clear, as the visitors began to have more and more influence on the game and their premature obituaries were hastily ripped up. Proceedings were much more finely balanced, and as a result the cerulean shirts belatedly started to take advantage of the elements that had been on their side since kick off.
They still had to rely on a couple of individual brain-farts from their hosts mind, as Kearney and his new partner Fairclough (fresh from Fukushima if his holiday tan was anything to go by) continued to boss the middle of the park, just not to the extent that the home side had been bossing it. It was either admirable or a little complacent of Prince that he didn’t just hoof a clearance back up the pitch when under pressure, half-a-dozen yards beyond his own ‘D’ (the scorer of Convo’s third had been moved to centre back when the substitutions had been made), but with the slippery surface cutting up underfoot he gifted the ball to his challenger who promptly walloped it first time into the top left-hand corner of the motionless Purcell’s goal.
Hit with a fair amount of venom, accuracy and surprise, the ‘keeper had stood no chance of stopping the shot, but that didn’t prevent a number of colleagues from grumbling at his unwillingness to go through the motions anyway. As is so often the case in the Second Team, once the seeds of blame have been sown the scapegoat might as well go and stake himself out in the middle of a clearing and wait to be devoured, and sure enough, ten minutes before the interval, Purcell’s finger-pointing wolf turned up for dinner. A heavy touch from McLaren on the halfway line shouldn’t really have been a major cause for concern, but the Wirral forward who pounced on the loose ball took a leaf out of his goal-scoring team mate’s book (assuming that it wasn’t the same person) and with no thoughts for further control launched a garryowen from his own half that caught the wind and... well, those familiar with the law of Sod shouldn’t need telling what happened next. Somewhat understandably the #1 hadn’t been expecting this turn of events and, the only player in his own half, was positioned several yards outside of the penalty area; one look at him as his shoulders slumped in the instant following the ball leaving the striker’s foot would have been enough to tell you that he knew immediately where it was heading, and all the good he could do about it.
Even if the gods hadn’t been trying to instigate a spot of percy-flage at the ‘keeper’s expense, Dickson had already decided that Purcell was a little too gambrinous for his liking and, just as with Mick McCarthy and Wolves, his services were no longer required. Mitchell replaced him in the nets for the start of the second period, while Richy Schofield and Shanahan also returned (for Jago and Kearney respectively – Willis dropped to the left wing), but by far the most newsworthy entrance at the halfway stage of the game was the long-awaited comeback of one Darren Ragnauth Esquire (on for Prince).
Piercing the air with his familiar motivational calls to arms, the erstwhile club secretary slipped into a back line that had a fair old whiff of 2003 about it, and it was as though he’d never been away. Alongside Kevin Schofield he formed part of a shield that the visitors would have struggled to overcome even if the ravages of time hadn’t regained the upper hand over them during the break, and with Willis and Lamb doubling up on the flanks ahead of the two captains, Wirral’s chance of getting anything out of the game had gone the same way as the wind – against them.
A shot from their #7, which crashed against the underside of Mitchell’s crossbar before bouncing down and then back out into the near-deserted penalty area, was all the Vets could muster as a threat to their hosts during the second half, and Lady Luck had a few other ordeals for them as well. The referee was poor throughout the match, with both teams falling foul of his myopia and misinterpretation (he was recognised as a regular in the Halewood Junior League), but the visitors seemed to be particularly susceptible to his faulty decisions. All the incorrect offside calls in the world though, don’t explain how one of their defenders tried to hoof a clearance into the wind at one point, only to completely miss the ball and volley a fallen team mate in the guts instead.
Rowing and fighting amongst themselves further undermined their cause (and taking it out on their hosts – as the #4 did when kicking out at Fairclough for a perceived injustice – won’t have endeared them to any greater extent either), but it was probably understandable as they fell apart. For once, when Willis broke down the left flank on the hour mark, they couldn’t blame the official when he turned away their appeals for offside, and with the denizens of their back line in disarray as the Convo man put a deep cross in to the goalmouth, Richy Schofield was able to lay the ball back to Shanahan, and he poked it home from near the penalty spot with his right peg.
The scorer’s all-out focus and commitment to the Convo cause was further highlighted shortly after that when he charged down a Wirral throw-in and set off towards the opposition goal in search of his hat trick even though the ball hadn’t actually been in play. His enthusiasm was in stark contrast to Jelen, who’d never recovered from the effort he’d had to put into curling a shot over the bar in the first half and spent the majority of the second wandering around the pitch with his hands down the front of his shorts (something he may have picked up from the Halewood Junior League).
Yet more ‘ambitious’ shots from Richy Schofield drifted high, wide and homeward before he finally troubled the score sheet, having won the ball in the middle of the pitch, charged into the penalty area with it from the right flank, and then blasted an effort across the Wirral ‘keeper that flew in at the back post. There were a little over twenty minutes remaining at that point, a stat confirmed by Captain Dickson making his final changes and removing three-quarters of the back line: Jago and Kearney returned in place of Dickson and McLaren, while Prince replaced Kevin Schofield.
Jolted from any hint of developing complacency by the visitors hitting the crossbar, Convo put the tie to bed in the final ten minutes when the Wirral ‘keeper spilled a relatively easy catch at a corner, a yellow-shirted player (your correspondent failed to make a note of who it was) had a dinked effort blocked by an opponent on the goal line, and the ball ricocheted to the serendipitously positioned Shanahan who placed it into the net to complete a left foot/right foot/header hat trick.
An almost tangible apathy fell over everyone after that, and the denouement of the game was a case study in pointlessness. The attention of everyone on the Convocation touchline wandered to the adjacent pitch (the one parallel to the Astroturf) where the Firsts were in the final stages of a hard-fought victory over (the previously unbeaten league leaders) Waterloo, and before you knew it (unless you were playing) the referee was calling it a day – both of the club’s camps had won.
Considering how superior the Seconds were to their guests for the large majority of this game, it’s a little surprising just how close they came to being pegged back in the latter stages of the first half, and while it’s a little unfair to lay the blame for all the world’s ills at the door of Purcell and his lack of abstinence, Dickson’s jiggery-pokery at the interval undoubtedly steadied the teetering ship. The reward for such unusually-effective tinkering was a near-flawless second period, but hindsight can be a sobering companion: it’s quite likely that the Vets would have finished the game just as languorously if the Convo captain had stuck with the status quo.
Old and half dead they may have been (and as irritating as Justin Beiber playing the recorder to boot), but the visitors are still bothersome opponents who the Seconds always take great satisfaction from beating, so victory – and a second win on the bounce at that – represents a satisfying afternoon at the seam and a suitable tribute for the Antiques Roadshow’s big day. In future the anniversary and the match could be commemorated with another trophy (to replace the memorial one that the two clubs used to play for), made of some sort of apposite sculpture.
Bones, perhaps.
Man Of The Match: It has to be Shanahan, the guy who once played on a broken leg for two months before he realised something was amiss. That sort of commitment to Convo’s cause might not be as heart-warming as Zambia winning the Africa Cup of Nations, but after his exemplar of a perfect hat trick he won’t care.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Mitchell, Schofield K, Dickson; Jago, Kearney, Shanahan, Lamb B; Prince, Schofield R; Subs: Fairclough, Jelen, Willis, Ragnauth
Bobby Mimms reports
They may have thought that the Devil was amongst them at Old Trafford, but fifty miles away in Ruthin events at a more obscure fixture appeared to finally prove that there is no God. It might have taken millennia of blind faith to perfect the concept of an almighty and vengeful creator who would punish the human race for their sins with plagues and tsunamis, but in just ninety minutes of football one Convocation player brought the whole religious house of cards tumbling down. The performance in question will one day be seen as some sort of Damascene conversion in reverse, heralding the atheists inheritance of the Earth, but the bushel was actually extinguished in the moment when John Topping scored the most undeserved goal in the history of football, because after the way he’d played there’s no way that an all-powerful supreme being could ever allow that to happen.
But, just to play Luis Suarez’s Advocate for a second, how else but through divine intervention could you explain a match that was so thrillingly enjoyable it was almost heavenly? It was a rollercoaster ride of a game, filled with multiple comebacks, an own goal, a penalty save and even the name of Solomon Grundy being invoked, although the highlight from the perspective of the chaps from Liverpool was that it finished with them on the winning side.
It also had a fair old sprinkling of the novel and the surreal – vital prerequisites for any Convocation venture worthy of the name. The fun and games had begun as soon as they’d arrived at their destination – ‘behind the fire station’, as directed – and all tried to squash into a priest’s hole of a changing room. Even with only ten men having made the journey it was such a tight squeeze that Topping had to get changed in the shower cubicle, while the ceiling was so low that Ben Prince couldn’t move around without stooping for fear of cracking his head; an open drain running across the floor of the room from the ablution area added further charm to the Lilliputian set-up.
The conditions out on the pitch were no less unorthodox. The game was being played at a different location to the clubs’ inaugural meeting at the end of last season, and by the look of it the change of venue had only been decided upon at the last minute: clumps of freshly-mown grass were strewn all over the wide expanses of the sward and its boundaries appeared to have been marked out by someone having an Oliver Reed episode, as at no point was the whitewash straight for more than a few feet, there were no ‘D’s on either penalty area, and the one that Convo defended in the first period had ‘Adidas stripes’ instead of an eighteen-yard line. The pitch also had quite a noticeable gradient, making the crossbar of the goal at its bottom unreachable (to short-arses, at any rate) – a phenomenon exacerbated by a substantial dip in the ground – and one of the corner flags was little more than a foot high (seriously), although as it was at what became known as the deep end it is possible that it was partially submerged (not so seriously).
With ‘The Curse of the Bear’ having struck yet again last weekend the returning Paul Dickson might have expected to rustle up more than only ten for the first airing of his new haircut, but as it was he had to go cap in hand to the hosts in order to even the numbers up and goalkeeper Paul Argent was the boyo to accept the Convo shilling. Instead of donning the gloves though, the Rhewl man agreed to play the game up front alongside Billy Lamb, with Keith Purcell keeping his place in the nets despite offering to make way for the guest. Ahead of him was a rearguard of Prince and Kevin Schofield, flanked by the Captain and his jinxed Vice-Captain to the right and left respectively, with Topping, Jon Kearney, Mike Edwards and Tim Jago stretching across the midfield in the opposite direction.
To the rabid opprobrium of absolutely no one, only the two captains shook hands before the yellow-and-black shirted Rhewl got proceedings underway, attacking down the incline and in the general direction of the beautiful mist-shrouded hills looming in the distance; an elderly gentleman on a bench occasionally took his eye off supervising a couple of kids in the nearby playground – naturally – to check out the drama on the pitch. And drama there was, although considering that the game ended with nine goals to its credit it was slightly surprising with hindsight that only two of them were scored before the half-time interval, especially as there must have been nearly twenty attempts on target during a breath-taking first period that seemed to be over almost as soon as it had begun.
For the blues of Convocation (that’s their colours, not just a mental state) Lamb was the most profligate, somehow managing not to score from a quartet of excellent chances that included two one-on-ones with the opposition ‘keeper. Putting in the sort of brave devil-may-care performance one might expect of a man who had driven all the way into deepest darkest Wales with no rear-view mirror, Kearney was a dilemma for the opposition as prickly as the carpet of pine needles his shed-of-a-car was covered in (and which your correspondent had been forced to sit amongst if he’d wanted a lift to the Principality); it was he who went the closest for Convo without actually scoring when, from a little over five yards outside the Rhewl penalty area, he smashed a shot that whistled inches wide of one of the uprights.
The home side were no slouches on the front foot either, and in one five-minute spell midway through the half they could have put themselves half-a-dozen goals to the good if their deluge of shots hadn’t been either straight at Purcell – although he was required to move when making one save to his right – or narrowly off target (heaven knows how much damage they would have done on the housing estate immediately behind the Convo goal if there hadn’t been a huge expanse of netting in place to compensate for wayward strikes). However, they were eventually rewarded for their efforts and took the lead shortly before the half-hour mark, when their left winger skipped past Dickson and curled a delicious low ball along the notorious ‘corridor of doom’ that the ‘keeper turned his nose up at and the back-tracking Schofield somehow missed, before an unmarked Welshman side-footed it home at the back post.
Jago confounded that sombrero reputation he’s picked up over the years, shortly after the restart, when he managed to get back and head the ball off the line after Purcell had forced a clearly-uncertain opponent wider than he would have liked at a one-on-one, but was then still beaten by a dinked shot from just inside the eighteen-yard box. The hosts continued to probe though, and within a couple of minutes the Convo #1 had to finger-tip the ball onto his left-hand upright at full stretch when one of the Rhewl players seemed to Roberto Carlos a central-ish free kick around a four-man wall, while in the dying seconds of the half he was called into action again after Argent proved that he wasn’t just going through the motions for his adopted side by sending an erstwhile team mate crashing to Earth more violently than Rod Hull ever did. As the challenge was inside the Convo penalty area the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot (which, like the ‘D’s, wasn’t there), but Purcell guessed the right way to dive and, with a strong wrist that turned out to be the last touch of the first half, almost put the ball out for a throw-in.
By then though, the visitors’ attacking élan had borne fruit with an equaliser. It was a goal that even found a place in its creation for the atrocious Topping, who’d spent the majority of the first half putting in the sort of effort that would have seemed lethargic at a lawn-bowls club. He received the ball from Purcell and then tried out the novel trick of passing to one of his own players – quite the feat even when he’s playing well – in this case Lamb, who noticed that Edwards had made a bit of space for himself about ten yards outside the Rhewl penalty area so played him in with a perfectly-weighted pass. The Treasurer was suddenly faced with a golden chance to show that there’s still life in the old bones, and with the minimum of fuss speared a shot into the top left-hand corner of the hosts’ goal (as he was looking at it) that three ‘keepers wouldn’t have kept out. He’s not the sort of player that would seek attention by writing out messages on T-shirts, but nonetheless the goal was a fitting homage for the 200th birthday of his old school chum, Charles Dickens.
As the second half got underway it began to look as though some sort of tribute might also be being paid to the absent Convocation President, Ian McDermott, as for the umpteenth time that afternoon the #51 went past in what was clearly an honorary drive by of all the village’s bus. However, before it could come around yet again – it seemed to be every ten minutes – the visitors had the lead; it was their opponents who did the scoring though. It wasn’t one of those comedy ogs that the Seconds specialise in, just a rather mundane deflection by a defender past his own ‘keeper, after Topping – who’d had problems throughout the first period with, y’know, running – had finally pulled his finger out and pinged a low cross into the crowded goalmouth.
Several minutes later the Chairman added supreme insult to the injury that his performance had already caused, when he scored the visitors’ third – the one that will have caused so much disquiet amongst theological circles – pouncing on the ricochet created when a defender charged down a goal-bound shot from Edwards, and rolling the ball past the wrong-footed Rhewl ‘keeper. Who says you only get what you deserve in life?
In time-honoured tradition, Convo’s two-goal advantage didn’t have a chance to marinate. With about half-an-hour remaining they were in the perfect position to kick on and put some distance between themselves and their hosts before the end, but seeing out matches just isn’t in the club’s DNA. Almost immediately from the restart one of the home side barged past a number of blue-shirted opponents before smashing a shot from the edge of the penalty area that Purcell got his fingers to but couldn’t keep out. And in time-honoured tradition, Convo’s collective arse went.
A cross into their goalmouth from out where McLaren should have been defending caused the sort of panic usually only seen when crocodiles suddenly lunge out from the depths at African watering holes, and despite the ‘keeper once again getting his fingers to the ball to momentarily deflect it away from the target, a blast through the throng of thirsty zebras from twelve yards out levelled the scores. Several minutes later, a repeat of their second goal, only with a shot from a little further out, made it 4-3 to the home side.
It seemed incredulous that the visitors, who had been quite sublime for the first quarter-of-an-hour of the second period, could have lost the plot so quickly; somehow, Rhewl had gotten themselves into a position of advantage in the game despite having barely been near their opponents’ penalty area. A golf ball found by Dickson at the start of the half (how did it go unnoticed during the first forty-five minutes?) had spent more time in the Convo box than any of the home side’s players, but in the space of less than ten minutes their guests had gone from almost coasting to victory to facing a long, introspective journey home.
And then, when it was all beginning to look familiarly ominous, the Convo players did something quite alien to them in taking a leaf out of Harry Redknapp’s book – they got themselves out of jail. It’s possible that having fought so hard to get their noses back in front Rhewl took their foot off the pedal, but there can be no doubt that for the last twenty minutes the visitors rolled up their sleeves and put in a shift (well, except for Topping, who also lost what tiny fraction of credibility he had left when he went flying in slapstick style with no one near him), during which time both Lamb and Edwards went close to equalising only to be denied top-corner specials by a couple of excellent saves from the Welsh #1.
Lamb never did get the goal that his water-carrying performance probably deserved, but he was integral to the move that did eventually level the scores. It began out on Convo’s right flank – or Grimpen Mire, as Jago had rechristened it, having laboured thanklessly though its several inches of slop and surface water during the second period – from where the Scotsman played the ball inside to his colleague, who then played a number of one-twos with the wandering Schofield; a final chip over the top of the Rhewl back line by Lamb set up the defender for the simplest of tap-ins.
Convocation’s winner, about five minutes from the end, was the third of their goals that will have led to an increase in calls from South Liverpool to the Samaritans on Saturday evening. With Topping having already scuffed a truly rotten corner that only just managed to make it into the opposition penalty area earlier in the half, it’s unlikely that there were many people on the pitch who would have been expecting much at the sight of him placing the ball for another. And even when it was crossed without hitch in towards the near post, the chances of the visitors sneaking the game’s final goal would still have seemed remote seeing as the only person attacking the ball was Prince, and his attempts at a diving header in the warm-up had resulted in nothing but a muddy arse and hoots of derision from his team mates. The combination of gadabout and part-time jester seemed to work though, as the defender’s glancing header found the slightest of gaps between man and upright, and several minutes later the visitors were returning to the anti-Tardis with all three (metaphorical) points under their belts.
It seems wrong to kick a man when he’s down, but when he’s just undermined one of the cornerstones of Christian doctrine and western civilisation then it needs to be done: The Chairman was truly dreadful during this game, contributing the square root of bugger all for ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of its duration, with a performance that could make your hair bleed. And yet he still walked off the pitch with a goal and two assists to his name, which makes you wonder whether the answer to all of those evangelical types’ question is that ‘the truth’s name is Topping?
The club that everyone retired to after the game – reminiscent of Trafalgar Club in Rockferry – was a little underwhelming to start the celebrations of such a momentous occasion (winning the game, obviously, not the destruction of all known faiths), and the chaps even had to suffer the added indignity of coughing up a whole 10p to leave their cars in the nearby pay-and-display car park (your correspondent paid for Kearney). But from such humble beginnings...
Man Of The Match: Any MOTM performance would have to be infinitely better that of Mary Shelley’s John Topping, which would surely break the known laws of mathematics. So to prevent the universe from ripping itself in half, the award is withheld.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Schofield K, Prince, Dickson; Topping, Kearney, Edwards, Jago; Argent, Lamb B
Bobby Mimms reports
A mind-blowingly anomalous single-goal victory aside, games between these two teams have often tended to result in heavy, sometimes double-figure thrashings for Convo, so after one particularly galling encounter several years ago – and the resultant meltdown of certain highly-strung individuals – the fixture was dropped from the calendar in the hope that it and its many embarrassments would never be mentioned again. It was a successful ploy for a while, but then last summer the clubs met up for a cricket match and, overcome by a beguiling bravado conceived of actually competing on a level playing-field for a change, Paul Dickson’s thoughts turned to a renascence of the whole damned affair. A game at Wyncote had to be called off before Christmas due to the Wirral side having other commitments, but on Saturday, despite an overnight frost wiping out most other games on Merseyside, the two teams faced each other on the football field for the first time since January 2006… and it was like there’d never been a break.
The match only lasted as a contest for a little over sixty seconds – the time it took for the home side to break the deadlock by whacking a shot through fifteen yards of tumult into the roof of their guests’ net – and once the lead was doubled, a couple of minutes later, the Convo players were already bracing themselves for a lengthy session of damage limitation. But despite the quite obvious difference in class between the two teams, a disparity that meant that even with ninety percent of the game remaining only a fool would have considered the conclusion as anything but foregone, the visitors remained uncharacteristically upbeat and positive. The way that the Liverpool side’s chances of victory had been as good as ended before some of the Wasps’ entourage had even made it to the sidelines would usually have brought about displays of furious consternation and hand wringing within the Convo ranks, but on Saturday there was only acceptance and a resolve that any mistakes should be learned from, rather than used as a stick to beat the perpetrators. Even when they were repeated, as those made at Wirral’s second were, at their third.
An imminent beating being endured with comity and a Zen-like peacefulness? It might not sound like the Seconds, but this has happened before – not very often mind, but, when the conditions have been right, it’s been known. One of the prerequisites for such a scenario was apparent while the chaps were still in Liverpool though, as Dickson and Andy Willis talked tactics and skulduggery in the former’s back room, after, one by one over the previous few days, colleagues had ruled themselves out of contention; the captain had only had eight players the night before, and the bare eleven at kick off.
Not for the first time a bricolage approach to team selection served Convocation well, and the absence of any spare players seemed to toughen the minds of the ones available. It’s hard to believe that a first-minute concession would have been greeted with such tolerance had the visitors not been blighted by a lack of numbers; it’s difficult to imagine the Mather Avenue outfit only conceding one more goal in the opening half, once they’d gone 2-0 down so early, with anyone else but that starting line-up. But probably because of the adversity they knew that they were always going to be under, and only too aware of their own short comings, the players that were present didn’t try to be what they weren’t, played for each other, and a real team spirit was fostered.
That it concomitantly turned out to be a blitz spirit was all for the better, in the same way that those who’d survived in London during the Second World War were strengthened by the hardships associated with the real thing: they’d been battered and humbled, but emerged from the dust with the bonhomie and camaraderie that had carried them through still intact. Sure, the Wirral side were raining in shots on the Convo goal like doodlebugs, while the visitors themselves could only manage two, of any description, in the whole game. And there were times when the defence – which was pretty much everyone – couldn’t get the ball out of their own penalty area, never mind the half, a siege that their players tried to combat with a deliberate ‘go slow’ every time the ball went out of play.
By the end though, desperation was to be found in the eyes of the Wirral players who hadn’t secured the rout that they felt their dominance deserved, and who, almost with a hint of sadism, suddenly strove for more goals in the dying moments despite having ended the game themselves over eighty-odd minutes earlier. All the while, those in Convo red mocked the evidence of the avian punch-up that had strewn the pitch before kick off, because white feathers didn’t belong to them, having made the journey to the peninsula.
That’s not to say that they’d turned up in Greasby with a sense of defeatism though – just a latent realism. The opening goal – while some of them were still picking the creases out of their jerseys – really did knock the stuffing out of them, while the second had them clinging to the ropes for dear life. But the hosts fluffed their lines when it mattered most, because that was when Convo were there for the kill, and with hindsight, the point at which the annihilation was avoided. A third goal in the five/ten minutes after the second would have sown the seeds for a right royal gubbing, but the visitors held their nerve, deprived their opponents of the chances that they were so blissfully unaware that they needed, and ran the clock down like pros. And boy, did they play it like real old scrubbers.
Every throw-in was fumbled; every dead ball was kicked past the taker; every rogue shot was retrieved with a jog less hasteful than if it had been walked. It may not sound pretty – it wasn’t – but if every second counted, then every move was as intriguing as a Grand Master’s zugzwang. Only Jon Kearney – who’d been spotted in Home and Bargain “just getting bits” earlier in the day – rocked the boat, after the fourth, when he called for the ball to be retrieved more quickly without realising the master plan. Convo surreptitiously taking the sting out of the home side’s attack was why the Wasps only realised so late that their dominance deserved so much more than they’d acquired. University hadn’t been wasted on the visitors.
There was actually a ten-minute spell in the second half when they had the luxury of their own purple patch, during which band aids were applied and repairs hastily made to the defence while the front line did their bit to relieve the pressure. Joel Jelen, who’d had a shot fly close to the crossbar just after the interval, set up Willis for Convo’s only other chance of the game with a free kick from out on the right flank (he shot wide under pressure – Billy Lamb likened him to the ostrich in the Bedknobs and Broomsticks football match, who buries his head in the sand despite a sight of goal), but, with the game already lost, the brief respite enjoyed by those at the other end of the pitch proved more valuable than any consolation goals possibly could have.
It was the only time in the game that the Convo central midfielders and forwards were able to gain control of proceedings. The striplings Nick and Alex Jones joined dad Steve in that spinal quartet but for the most part they were all prevented from making any decisive attacking moves due to the superiority of their counterparts, and at times Alex and ‘strike’ partner Jelen might as well have been communicating with the rest of the team via pigeon post, such was their isolation. However, for the few seconds’ repose they occasionally gained in holding up the next Wirral offensive their youthful stamina (Alex and Nick’s, not Jelen’s) was vital, especially seeing as how the home side could regularly freshen up using the rolling subs that Convo never had.
Vibrancy can often be overrated though, and the visitors hadn’t exactly benefited from it when they’d had it. Not content with falling a goal behind inside the opening sixty seconds of the game, they shipped a second only a couple of minutes later when a corner (that goalkeeper Keith Purcell had admitted to conceding, after the referee had missed his fingertip touch – Doh!) was headed into the back of the Convo net via the crossbar and the back post, from ten yards out.
Tim Jago had been positioned on the line for that goal and joked afterwards that he should have leapt and grabbed the bar in an attempt to head the ball clear (and invariably likened such a scenario to the Tartan Army’s invasion of Wembley in 1977), but when he got a chance to make amends in an identical situation, midway through the first period, he could do little but redirect the headed effort into the roof of his own net. Someone asked whether it counted as another own goal for the Scot, but the shot had been on target without his intervention, and anyway, hasn’t the man suffered enough?
The corners kept on coming and Dickson had to clear the ball off the line at the other post, just before the interval, and as an encore he then treated everyone (but particularly Jago) to his best Mr Punch impression by opining “that’s the way you do it, Timbo”. The Scot was unimpressed though, having been subjected to a much more thorough examination by the opposition wingers during the half than his captain had; the home side had decided early on the concentrate their attacks on the visitors’ left flank, manned by Jago and Andy McLaren, and as a result Convo’s answer to Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger were run ragged.
It appeared that some of the Wirral players had problems with basic anatomy, as they regularly claimed hand balls against their opponents regardless of whether it was even close to being so. In the end Dickson lost his rag with the opportunistic Wirral right back and told him where he could shove the free kick he wanted, but otherwise the game was played in a friendly enough manner and the only grumble that came close to upsetting the visitors’ inner tranquillity was when Kearney tried to overrule the unofficial diktat and recreate the previous week’s Charge of the Convo brigade, after the fourth (a shot past the advancing Purcell, from just inside the area).
The goalkeeper spread himself well to concede a corner not long after the visitors got the game going for the fifth time that afternoon, but a stumbling, almost apologetic back-post header from a right-wing cross made it 5-0 to the home side with about half an hour remaining. For reasons only known to themselves they then took their foot off the figurative pedal, and the sun (shining diagonally across the pitch) gave Convo more cause for concern during the following ten minutes, with their players joking – an offence that usually warrants capital punishment in the Second Team – that they expected a Fokker to emerge from out of the glare at any second.
At about the same time that the referee announced that there were fourteen minutes remaining – Dickson asked in both halves and, curiously, on both occasions the answer was the same – a rainbow appeared in the distance, but it certainly didn’t presage any kind of easy finish for the visitors. When the Wasps shook off their self-imposed cobwebs and broke down their right flank moments later, it seemed inconceivable that they wouldn’t score from a low pass along their guests’ six-yard box, with two gold-and-black liveried players sliding in at the back post. Amazingly though, they both missed the ball and it was cleared back upfield by Convo’s ridiculously-late-on-the-scene captain.
But then, with a little over five minutes remaining, the man in black made one of his few mistakes of the afternoon and awarded a harsh penalty to the home side, when it appeared that Lamb had made an excellent last-ditch tackle. His decision seemed even more mistaken when you considered that the upended Wirral player had tried to sneakily slap the ball into the net as he went down, didn’t appeal for a foul, and actually got back up blaming a divot in the pitch and expecting a goal kick. But the official was adamantine in his decision, and though Purcell argued about the whereabouts of the penalty spot for nearly a minute – the goalmouth that he guarded in the second half was shocking, with a wide furrow running down its middle and into the back of the net – the taker wasn’t distracted and whacked his kick into the roof of the net.
There was enough time for one of the home side to outpace McLaren and smash a shot in at the near post to make it seven, but not enough for them to get the half-dozen-or-so that you could tell they suddenly felt they deserved – despite being so far in front they were actually retrieving the ball for Convo by the end – and the ref called it a day before too long.
Four-foot high showers were not the final insult, that came back at Ellie’s Bistro when one of the Wirral players brought over a big platter of chips and butties for the chaps, and then all the other Wirral lads accused them of hogging the food (no one had explained that the platter was for everyone). On Sky Jeff Stelling announced the Tubbs had scored for Crawley and that Hibs had lost four-nil to Rangers – meaning that Timbo had lost 11-0 in total. Dicko sipped a sherry.
And nobody moaned. Convo might have been given a pasting on Saturday, but everyone knew that it was not down to their own deficiencies, rather their opponents’ strengths, and that there was pretty much nothing they could have done about it. There was no point in losing their tempers and pointing fingers; they might as well just accept that other teams sometimes (often… always…) have better players. Convo did their best – and they did – everyone dug in to help each other out, and because of a team spirit like that they had nothing to fear but fear itself.
Man Of The Match: After such a backs-to-the-wall performance it would be unfair to single any one player out, so this week it’s a team award.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Willis, Lamb B, Dickson; Jago, Jones S, Jones N, Kearney; Jelen, Jones A
Bobby Mimms reports
By the end of the game the Halkyn pitch looked as though it had hosted the Horse of the Year show, which at least would explain why Convocation lost, as they only had donkeys out on it. There’d never been a chance of them returning to Liverpool with any ribands or rosettes from this gymkhana though, not once they’d travelled to Wales with a hooray-Henry attitude and put in a defensive display that was somewhere between woeful and suicidal. And having won the corresponding fixture 8-3 last season, it was just as well that the visitors weren’t of an equine persuasion, as even National Velvet’s Liz Taylor would have packed them off to the knackers yard or the glue factory after such a pathetic fourteen-goal swing in favour of their hosts. Thoroughbreds they most certainly were not.
Still, at least the game wasn’t as dour as last week’s soul-sapping non event. Watching that abomination left you with an urge to scour your eyes out with a Brillo Pad and some Jif, and it was only a therapeutic session of liquid bonding in Pi on Friday evening – scuttlebutt, Honker’s Ale (with complimentary nuts or mini sausages – how Freudian is that?), a chance meeting with Mr Moore, and a photo of a teenage Andy McLaren in which he looked like the illegitimate lovechild of Pam Shriver and Fred West – that made your correspondent consider giving this football lark yet another chance. Leaving the premises as the most sober of the chaps also seemed to be proof that things could only get better.
It was an optimism that Simon O’Brien concurred with the following afternoon in the lavish environs of the Halkyn changing rooms – the hosts having polished their homely turd with a lick of paint and a bit of plastering. Full of his usual pre-match positiveness the media man revealed that he was confident of a favourable result, and even predicted that the Convo rearguard would have a good game, although that high priest of cynicism, Keith Purcell, pointed out that such prophecies usually pre-empted “a thirteen-goal thriller” – a prognostication that was both on the nail and way off the mark, in the same breath.
There was no need for soothsaying to envisage what kind of game it was going to be though, not with a howling gale swirling sleet flurries around the pitch as though the quagmire was halfway up Mt Snowdon. A five-minute deluge that had soaked everyone to the shivering skin within minutes of Halkyn getting proceedings underway added further misery to the shambles, and it was to no one’s surprise that by the midpoint of the opening half O’Brien’s earlier joie de vivre had once again proven to be ephemeral.
In fairness though, that probably had more to do with the visitors converting an early lead into a four-one deficit than the lousy weather conditions. A long defence-splitting pass from Kevin Schofield had played the mop-chopped Andy Willis in on goal inside the first few minutes, and one-on-one with the Halkyn ‘keeper the forward had gone through the usual routine of closing his eyes, hitting the ball as hard as possible, and hoping for the best. But rather than galvanise his own team, Willis’ goal only seemed to spark the home side into action, and in the following quarter of an hour they rattled in a diverse quartet, while their guests floundered in the squall.
Donning the yellow loon kit Convo had started with Purcell betwixt the sticks behind a back four of (from left to right) McLaren, Schofield (K), Ian Mitchell and Paul Dickson, and though they all thoroughly deserved the opprobrium directed at them at full time, they were the victims of a shocking piece of refereeing while they were still of clear conscience (well, footballing-wise). In the absence of a proper official one of the Halkyn players had taken charge of the whistle and on the whole put in a fairly decent showing, but when a blue-and-white shirt got the timing of a run all wrong and was caught yards offside by the Convo defence, the ersatz man-in-black erred by deeming him onside and never quite redeemed himself in the eyes of the wronged and, subsequently, level-pegging visitors.
It was pretty much all downhill back to Liverpool from there. Three more Halkyn goals followed in fairly quick succession, the first two of which owed a lot to some atavistic Convo defending, but it would be unfair to lay all of the blame for the subsequent mullering at the door of the back line. Richy Schofield and Joel Jelen were paired in central midfield, with O’Brien and Billy Lamb – who, amazingly, was making his first ever visit to Halkyn – flanking them on the wings, but they offered their comrades in defence more protection from the elements than from the marauding Halkyn attack. Although you could tell he was trying his best, Jelen’s performance – if you could call it that – was particularly abject, and never were the home side more threatening than when he was in possession of the ball. Schofield, on the other hand, was more conspicuous by what he wasn’t doing, than what he was, and though he didn’t realise it at the time, hindsight would suggest that O’Brien must have been saving himself for the second half, while for all the input he was having on proceedings, Lamb might as well have been sight-seeing around the village.
By the time Paul Fairclough and John Flamson were summoned from the sub station to replace Richy Schofield and Dickson, respectively, Convo had well and truly fallen apart: McLaren – who’d broken a hand the previous day in a domestic – blocked a shot from the edge of the area, only for an unmarked Halkyn player to give his side the lead by tapping home the loose ball on the line; a second unmarkee also had the easiest of jobs at the back post when a colleague crossed from the right, moments after that; and for the second week running a beauty of a shot from the right-hand corner of the penalty area gave Purcell no chance as it arced into the top left-hand corner of his goal.
After the match Dickson displayed a fine line in shameless Stalinistic revisionism by observing that the home side “never scored while Richy Schofield was off the pitch”, although the captain’s smoke and mirrors didn’t quite manage to disguise the fact that he himself had been stood next to the midfielder on the sideline during that second quarter. But while Halkyn failed to find the back of the net in the twenty minutes leading up to half time they certainly went close to improving their advantage.
Purcell made a fine double-save with his right foot at one point, but otherwise spent a fair old time rooting around in the foliage behind his goal due to the inordinate amount of narrowly-off-target shots that the Welsh side managed to fire in (they were playing into the gale blowing the length of the pitch). It wasn’t always necessary for them to create their own chances, either. Shortly before the break the goalkeeper had come tearing out of his penalty area to try and clear a long ball that had been lofted over the top of the defence, despite Flamson chasing back towards him in anticipation of it dropping over his shoulder and being pretty much guaranteed to reach it first. Anyone with even the slightest awareness of Convocation’s long and proud tradition of self-inflicted misfortune shouldn’t need telling that the former chairman then blindly attempted to pass the ball back to where he thought his #1 was – a place that was almost in a different postcode to where he actually was. For once disaster was averted, but only inside the six-yard box, and only after a number of players had participated in a Benny Hill-style chase back into the area.
There was no such drama at the other end of the pitch, as Convo seldom came close to their opponents’ eighteen-yard box. On the few occasions that they did, farce invariably followed, and never more so than when Ben Prince (partnering Willis, up front) won a tussle with a Halkyn player out on the left flank and attempted to put a cross into the goalmouth. Unfortunately, he completely missed the ball and volleyed his fallen adversary – who was on all fours in front of him – flush in the guts from point blank range instead, the understandable force of the kick making it look as though he’d tried to cross the player into the box (© I. Mitchell, 2012). God alone knows what Roberto Mancini would have mimed had he been on the sideline.
Prince would go on to have Convocation’s best non-scoring chance of the second half, when Flamson played him in from right back to fire wastefully over the Halkyn crossbar, but his first-half victim would have the last laugh as the home side ran amok and their guests imploded. Mitchell had had to leave at half time – undeniably the visitors’ best move of the match – so O’Brien replaced him in the heart of the defence, while Richy Schofield and Dickson returned on the left flank. There was an increasing apathy about the yellow shirts though, a lugubriousness brought on by the prospect of anticipated humiliation, and coupled with having to attack the ‘tent end’ – or more pertinently, play into the wind – the visitors squelched their way through the second period like condemned men.
And ‘squelched’ is the operative word, because the end of the pitch that they defended after the interval was nothing but a good old-fashioned morass – one that just kept on deteriorating as the game progressed. It was almost impossible to move without slipping, and the ball was played out to the wings as often as possible as at least there was a bit of firm ground out there, in amongst the molehills. Any foray into the penalty area, in particular, involved such an inability to stand up that it was akin to some especially devious game on Jeux Sans Frontières, and almost every Halkyn attack finished with Purcell shivering in the slop, getting trench arse. Sadly for Convo, on only one occasion did it involve him also in possession of the ball.
It had only taken the home side a couple of minutes after the restart to net their fifth with a twenty-five yard lob, while the sixth – a one-on-one – was scored shortly before Jelen called it a day midway through the half, having been nowhere near as risible since the break as he had been before it; McLaren returned in his place and Flamson moved up into midfield.
As the goals against started to increase it was depressingly inevitable that the moaning would as well, and perhaps the referee took pity on the visitors. He pulled a couple of fine Halkyn moves back for offside in as many minutes, the second of which was particularly harsh seeing as the man who played the final pass actually ran through and collected it himself, only to have his notch disallowed as a team mate had strayed offside (yet had made no attempt to play the ball).
The man in the middle wasn’t going to keep rescuing Convocation forever though, and the dangerously high back line that had contributed to the sixth goal (and the two erroneous offside calls) was soon enough at fault again. Quite why O’Brien and Schofield were defending so far up the pitch, considering that they were tiptoeing around in the boggy conditions like Bambi on ice, is anyone’s guess, but in doing so they had made themselves even less mobile than their full backs, McLaren and Dickson, and that was only ever going to end in tears.
And then, as if tactical asininity and topographical purgatory wasn’t enough, Lady Bad Luck had to go and stick her two pence worth in as well. O’Brien and Schofield were carved apart by another expertly-weighted pass down the middle of the pitch, but having anticipated such a predicament Purcell was quickly out of his penalty area to try and clear the ball, reaching it at the same time as an opponent. It could have ricocheted from between them in any direction, so just what sticky-fingered shenanigans the gods were up to when it did don’t bear thinking about, such was their apparent disgust at something so trivial landing in their laps, and naturally, predictably, inevitably, the ball fell perfectly for the attacker who only had to run on into the goalmouth and roll it into the empty net.
Willis broke rank and looked momentarily interested shortly after that, although he still needed two bites of the cherry to score Convo’s second of the afternoon when one-on-one. There was even a slight chance of the hat trick at one point, but Richy Schofield was almost Ronaldo-esque in his reluctance to play the brace-nabber in, although by then the former First Team captain was probably in full-on denial having conceded the penalty from which Halkyn scored their eighth.
Number nine was almost exactly the same as the seventh, with the sole exception being that Purcell was never likely to intercept the ball and was consequently left stranded in no-man’s land while one of the Halkyn players went through the motions in front of the unguarded goal. The tenth was simply a case of rinse and repeat.
But after a while you stop noticing the nails going into the coffin, so when the Convo net bulged again, moments before the final whistle, for the thirteenth goal in what was certainly no thriller, most of their players were too numbed – both physically and emotionally – to care.
Halkyn had a number of new (younger) players in their side on Saturday, but there’s no way that their guests could use that as an excuse for their ignominy – not having played with such thud and blunder for ninety minutes. Like a perfect footballing storm, every now and again all of the club’s least admirable qualities come together and the result is that they take a caning; the home side could have put Barcelona’s starting eleven for last May’s European Cup final out in their name, and the result would still have been down to Convo’s ineptitude. Once again, in scoring first, Dicko’s touring comedy troupe peaked too early.
The obligatory post mortem began before anyone had managed to get into the showers – prompting Jelen to label the two main protagonists as “George and Mildred” – and continued on into the pub because, for once, even Willis had gone back. The chaps discussed the intricacies of Welsh scrabble over pints of Rampant Ram (no Freudian nibbles though), while outside the window a lone sheep with a dyed-blue arse waddled past in the road. What was most surreal though, was the Convo goal scorer apparently morphing into Young Mister Grace from Are You being Served, as he got up to leave:
“You’ve all done very well.”
His sarcasm was unmistakable, but as his colleagues supped up in his wake it seemed to confirm the irony of the afternoon: though these nags had been led to the watery fields of Halkyn, the only thing that they had been capable of was drinking.
Man Of The Match: Once it became clear that this game wasn’t going to be pretty your correspondent started scouring the pitch for signs of anyone standing out from the crowd (for the right reason, at any rate). Fairclough looked slightly less disastrous than the rest of the motley crew, so he’s this week’s least worst man of the match.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Schofield K, Mitchell, Dickson; O’Brien S, Schofield R, Jelen, Lamb B; Willis, Prince; Subs: Fairclough, Flamson
Insomnia’s Bobby Mimms reports
And so, with ten minutes of a seemingly interminable second half remaining, on the Convo sideline the murky past of Joel Jelen was once again dredged up. In fairness, any topic of conversation would have done; anything to relieve the tedium of the subbed and take their minds off the biting cold. But once captain Paul Dickson had mentioned the unfortunate maritime events in Italy, talk somehow segued into the One Trick Pony’s refusal to spend just one night at the Hotel Santiago in Colón – admittedly, an establishment with all the mod-cons of an Amish barn, the charm of the Bates Motel, and described by the Rough Guide to Cuba, somewhat generously, as “very basic and ugly” – and more particularly John Topping’s assertion because of it, that had he been on the Titanic Joel would have gotten dolled up as a pregnant woman at the first sign of trouble and tried to bluff his way onto one of the lifeboats.
It was a timely reminiscence, and the mention of the rescue craft was apt: the University side had shown little inclination during the previous eighty-odd minutes to rock any boats. They hadn’t played badly; indeed, in the first quarter of the game they’d probably been the better team. But they’d shown little-to-no adventure in the final third of the pitch against opposition who themselves were hardly daring, but who deserved their victory because they occasionally moved into second gear. It was a depressingly dreary affair and Croft were just as culpable as their hosts, but now and again they tried their luck, while Convo sleepwalked their way through proceedings in default mode, as though chilled to inertia like paramecium, by the cloudless sky and the icy breeze. Ultimately, the only difference between the two opponents was that the visitors had a handful of shots on goal.
That’s actually a little disingenuous and unfair on the home side, as they did manage to fire off a few during the course of the game. But their two best efforts were marginally off-target, while the only one that had… moved towards a point in between the Croft goalposts – in the same way that all the continents are moving back together again – was a woeful fancy-dan flick from Danny Horrocks, about ten minutes into the second half; the youngster could be grateful that the visiting ‘keeper was in its path to save his blushes, as it’s debatable whether the ball had the pace to trickle over the line if he hadn’t been.
Jelen and the club’s latest foreign acquisition, Catalonia’s Mario Baños-Vizcaino, had the two near misses, both before the break, but a curler that was just over the crossbar by the former and a shot into the side netting from the latter was a poor return from the home side for ninety minutes’ exertion (for want of a better word). Even that scourge of the middle-distance ball retriever, Richy Schofield, didn’t seem in the mood.
Instead, it was left to the visitors to offer up the occasional sliver of excitement, mainly with attempts that were all either straight at the Convo #1, Keith Purcell, or from such a distance that he had time to move across his goal and collect them: a cheeky attempted lob from about forty yards out and an in-swinging free kick from the wing being two examples of the latter (although the free kick was a closely-run thing – emerging from out of the glaring firmament and missing all contact, whence it bounced a half-dozen yards in front of the ‘keeper and had to be pushed over his crossbar at the last second).
Of the shots that Croft actually scored from, two were within minutes of each other, not long after Convo had made their initial changes of the afternoon midway through the first half. The second, from just outside the right-hand corner of the penalty area, was a beauty that curled across the ‘keeper and into the roof of the net, with the sureness of the sun rising in the morning. The other though, owed more to an untimely bout of Purcell erraticism.
He could claim to have been unlucky when the punt, from near the edge of the ‘D’ and heading towards the right side of the target, appeared to take a devious bounce right in front of his dive and he could only redirect it into the roof of the net. But one of the cardinal sins for a goalkeeper is not getting his body behind a shot, and for that Purcell could not blame misadventure. And it’s not as if there hadn’t been warning signs either: seconds beforehand, with no one anywhere near him, he’d momentarily taken his eye off a loose ball on the edge of his six-yard box and had almost deflected it across the line for what would have been a ridiculous own goal – although it was pounced on in the nick of time, the wheels of misfortune had been set in motion at that instant.
The #1’s footwork was slightly at fault for the third Croft goal, as well – albeit in a less eccentric way. Ten minutes into the second period Horrocks conceded a thoroughly needless foul on the angle of the penalty area (it was in a relatively similar position to where the visitors had scored their second from, at the other end), and having lined up a defensive wall to protect the right-hand side of the nets from a direct shot, Purcell readied himself to guard the other. Alas, at the worst-possible moment his faith in the wall deserted him (another of a goalkeeper’s cardinal sins – he was going through them at a fair old lick by then) and he took a couple of reassuring steps behind it, only for the free kick to streak in off the left-hand post he’d just deserted and end the game as a contest.
Because after that, with a three goal lead against an uninterested opposition, even the visitors could no longer be bothered and proceedings, which had hardly sparkled in the first place, fizzled out to the point that the Convo bench had to amuse themselves at Jelen’s expense.
In the opening twenty-five minutes though, a three-nil away win had looked far from likely. The blue-shirted Convo had kicked off with Jelen and Richy Schofield leading the line, and a back four that saw Andy Willis and Kevin Schofield bookended by Jon Kearney and Dickson (l and r respectively), and though they were all involved in the initial stages of the game to some extent, most of the action was in the middle third of the pitch until the first substitutions were made.
Illogically, Steve Jones was one of those first to be hooked, having started alongside Horrocks in the centre of the home side’s midfield, but he’d been the main reason that Croft had to wait so long to take control. It can’t have been a trick of the light that everything seemed to go through him while he was on centre stage for Convo, or that nothing to do with the visitors got past him. And it was surely no coincidence that once he was safely dispatched to the sidelines the Warrington greens took the initiative.
His young partner shone like he never could in the presence of Daddy H, and certainly put in his best performance in a Convo shirt, even if it will probably be remembered for that limp-ankled attempt on goal. Like Jones he saw an awful lot of the ball at the beginning – although in his case it was probably down to being the latest darling of the nepotistic factions – and his energy in the second half was certainly noticeable, if only by those not on the pitch. On the flanks Richy O’Brien and the taurophile, Baños-Vizcaino, complemented their co-midfielders and were lively, willing runners – sadly though, to little avail.
However, despite the opening twenty-odd minutes being Convo’s purple patch – best to get these things out of the way – it was still terribly scrappy, and the general refrain, for both sides, seemed to be ‘pass-pass-pass to an opponent’ (your correspondent can’t remember a game in which the ball was given away so much). A glassy-eyed Tim Jago brought to an end the home side’s period of what passed for dominance, by going all Simon Mann and trying to stage a coup – otherwise known as making substitutions… and when he’d been told to – causing Dickson, on the pitch, to go postal. When the changes were finally made, a good thirty seconds later, the Scotsman marched onto the pitch like Biffa Bacon, breathing fire (although it might have been whiskey fumes) and wanting to know: “hu the feck’s ’e think ’e’s terking te?”; Simon O’Brien and John Topping snuck on in his wake.
For the visitors it was the one known as ‘Basher’ who livened things up by losing the plot, the object of his ire being the referee (for blowing for half time while he was on the attack – the official subsequently disappeared for several minutes, delaying the restart, although he’d been late at the beginning as well). But otherwise the two Croft players that were most conspicuous in the eyes of their hosts were the proselytes, Mark Done and Peter Lamb.
It would have been understandable for the blue shirts to have feared the so-called ‘immutable law of the ex’, as the havoc dispensed by those who return to face former loves has been well documented over the years. But by the time that others in the team were putting their hosts to the sword – with goals that were celebrated by some with an over-exaggeration that can be forgiven under the aegis of unresolved issues – it was obvious that the old boys themselves were of little threat to their alma mater.
Done slipped past Kearney down the visitors’ right on a couple of occasions, but otherwise did little to suggest that Convo should have tried harder to keep hold of him, while his accomplice played almost all of the game at the heart of his team’s defence – a position that, under the circumstances, even Wayne Bridge would have considered too soft an option. The absence of much action (or particular opponents, maybe?) at the rear forced Lamb to go looking for adventure elsewhere in the end, but he seemed intent on playing the pantomime villain wherever he was and an expletive-laden tirade at the opposition bench earned him a yellow card not long into the second half – it only takes a few months, it seems, to learn the language of the rogue.
A second Croft player was booked for kicking out at Richy Schofield, presumably for having duped him in a challenge (the Convo man was lucky not to suffer a similar fate after squaring up to his assailant, considering the sudden trigger-happy nature of the ref), and both goalkeepers were substituted before the end, presumably just for the hell of it (a woolly hat was replaced by an anorak for the visitors; Purcell made way for Kevin Schofield, of all people, for the hosts). But otherwise the game trundled on mind-numbingly, suffering like Scott Dann, at one point, from a split ball.
In order to defend the family honour Chris Lamb came on for the final couple of minutes (for Horrocks, who returned moments later for a cramp-crippled Richy Schofield), although the referee wasn’t happy with the situation and refused to let the First Team captain to participate at first, as he’d already been involved in another game. One or two of the Croft players gave their blessing and the latecomer was allowed to stay, but sixty seconds later, at full time, he wanted to know what his brother was doing playing for a Veterans’ team, being “only thirty-one”.
As others on the pitch could have told you Chris: it’s easier to face the fading of the footballing light if you've already dimmed it beforehand.
The odd moment of interest aside, this was ninety minutes of rubbish that no one involved will ever get back (although if there’s a chance that it might be rerun, then good riddance to it). It’s a shame to say to it, but the only people associated with the club who even looked like the outcome might bother them were bedecked in green, and the apathy was even more evident when only a handful of the home side went back to the pub – everybody else wanted to be somewhere else.
Everyone else that is, except Joel, who would probably have given his right arm to have been sardined into the Storrsdale, rather than tied to a railway line with Peter Lamb standing over him, an evil glint in his eye as he twiddled his curly moustache and waited for the four-thirty to London.
Mwuuhh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaaaah!
Man Of The Match: Special mention to Timbo’s Ian Paisley memorial towel, and to Willis, who didn’t let himself down and was the only one to realise/care that all three goals came from outside the penalty area. Horrocks didn’t do too badly, but Jones was easily the best player in blue – he dictated the tempo of the game until he was scandalously substituted midway through the first half, and he was faultless at the heart of the defence in the – admittedly, comatose – second.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; Kearney, Willis, Schofield K, Dickson; O’Brien R, Jones, Horrocks, Baños-Vizcaino; Jelen, Schofield R; Subs: Jago, O’Brien S, Topping, ‘Lloydy’, Lamb C
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; Kearney, Willis, Schofield K, McLaren; Lamb B, Horrocks, O’Brien R, Baños-Vizcaino; McNally, Prince; Subs: Dickson, Holder, Cribbin
Bobby Mimms reports
With Santa having apparently been misled into believing that they’d been good little footballers all year round by the begging letters they’d written to the North Pole, the Convo coves woke up on Christmas morning to discover that their wishes had been granted: in the mud-flecked stockings hanging from the end of their beds was a Boxing Day football match. And what a cracker it turned out to be, as well. The festive cheer might have ultimately belonged to the scamps from the banks of the Dee, but the game was played in just the right spirit, with the added bonus of no sloping pitch – Cary Grant was right: it is a wonderful life. And while peace on Earth may have been beyond the players on the pitch, for once there did seem to be – and this is something that should not be taken for granted within the Convocation ranks – goodwill to all men.
There was no Second Team captain or vice-captain though, so after a rather half-hearted attempt at getting everyone to warm up with some stretching exercises John Topping was left with the much easier task of picking the starting eleven; he had twelve players at his disposal, which became thirteen when the lesser-spotted Bill Rand bolstered Convo’s ranks several minutes after kick off. Leaving Stevie Andrews on the bench, the Chairman opted to start the game with himself up front alongside Richy Schofield, and a midfield quartet of Joel Jelen and Richy Houston (centre), Steve Jones (left) and Richy O’Brien (right). The snug pairing of Andy Willis and Kevin Schofield began at the heart of the defence, while Chris McNally and Mike Edwards manned the full-back berths, and Keith Purcell, with the sun some ninety-three-million-miles-or-so away over his left-hand shoulder, was in the nets.
The visitors got proceedings underway attacking the Chester clubhouse, but the mercy of having a literal level playing field for once was somewhat tempered by a ferocious gale blowing its length, and they had to face into it during the first period. It took about ninety seconds for a youngster in orange and black to slip through the Convo rearguard and leave himself with only Purcell to beat, but not for the last time in that opening half the visitors’ offside trap snared an opponent.
Their high line, sometimes level with the edge of the centre circle, was a risky tactic for the team from Liverpool to employ, especially considering that they were giving almost all of their slick-heeled hosts at least ten years, but it initially seemed to work. The Nomads often found themselves squeezed back almost into their own half and the impetuousness and naivety of their callow fellows frequently caused them to time their runs poorly, although even when they did get it right the ball would regularly win the race through to Purcell or the chalk. On the one occasion that the offside trap was breached and a forward gained control of the ball, after about a quarter of an hour, his chances of scoring were severely compromised by a surprising reluctance to take on the Convo goalkeeper, and as a result he could only shoot narrowly wide of what little of the target he could see.
Of course, with such a strong wind blowing towards them, defending high enough up the pitch to catch opponents offside was a luxury reserved for when Convo could actually clear their lines. For the majority of the first forty-five minutes they were entrenched in their own final third, although with Jelen, Houston, Willis and (the elder) Schofield coping with the Nomads’ fluidity and (attempted) rapid passing well enough they rarely looked overwhelmed.
The two midfielders looked as though they’d played together for years. Jelen – his salt and pepper whiskers betraying his age as much as his energy belied it – was his usual silky self (admittedly, not always a compliment), stroking the ball around as though playing on a snooker table and always looking three moves ahead (admittedly, something he always does, although he’s usually in checkmate within two), whilst Houston was full of the quick thinking and reflex passes that Second Team forwards have been calling out for, for years. While not completely in control of the middle of the pitch, their presence was certainly enough to prevent the home side from gaining any advantage in the area, and it’s no surprise that all but one of Convo’s concessions came from elsewhere.
Nobody benefited more from that ‘presence’ than the two men behind them. Just as the Earth is protected from asteroid bombardment by the gargantuan gravitational pull of Jupiter, Willis and Schofield had little more than the odd high punt towards the penalty area to deal with in the opening quarter of the game, largely thanks to the protective actions of their beefier brethren (although the latter almost let the home side in, in the first couple of minutes, when he slipped just as he was about to make a routine header on the edge of the area – it looked as though a trap door had opened up underneath him – something his brother found hilarious). Instead the Nomads concentrated on the flanks, but to little avail at first as both Edwards and the unusually attentive McNally held them at bay (due to the wind and Convo’s troubles getting out of their own half, the wingers Jones and O’Brien had little impact on the game during the first half).
Playing into the ire of such a tempest though, it was never really believable that Convo could last until the interval without conceding, and midway through the half, just after Rand and Andrews entered the fray, everything went pear shaped. The Scotsman replaced Jones on the wing but, guarding a post at corners aside, was about as influential as the macabre amounts of roadkill that the visitors had passed on their way to Chester. Rand, on the other hand, executed a mini-Cruyff turn with his first touch of the ball, spent the remainder of the half accidentally kicking lumps out of anyone daft enough to come near him, and finished it off with the truly brilliant observation (from just outside his own penalty area) that the visitors were playing too high up the pitch (nobody else was deeper than half a dozen yards inside the Convo half). Yes Bill. Your three co-defenders – those dots you’re pointing to there in the distance – they’re the ones who are defending fifteen yards ahead of the offside trap.
It was the Convo Poet Laureate who conceded the corner from which the Nomads grabbed their first, one of their elder players heading home at the back post the in-swinging swirler that had been held up in the currents when it appeared that it would go straight out for a goal kick.
Several minutes later they doubled their lead when a clever pass from midfield played in a youngster who’d danced down the (Nomads’) inside-left channel and, being played onside by Willis, had slipped between Schofield and Rand and eventually slotted the ball underneath Purcell’s advance, having waited an eternity for the goalkeeper to commit himself. Willis was far from impressed with the whistle blower though: “How the fuck can you tell from there if he was onside?” he demanded to know, the closest he came to losing his rag all game. “I used that white line you were standing on” came the reply, referring to the clearly-marked edge of the penalty area that the Chester man had been nowhere near. Two-nil it was then.
By half time the home side had made it four with an excellent side-footed volley from a right-wing cross, and a twenty-yard lob that was aided no end by Purcell’s spasmodic inability to jump higher than an elephant (stripping the ‘keeper of the kudos he’d earlier earned by making a good save with his leg at a corner). Before that though, the visitors had pulled a goal back with possibly their best move of the match. One of their red-shirted ilk (your correspondent can’t recollect who) had been fouled about ten yards outside the Nomads penalty area and the Richys, Houston and Schofield, stood over the dead ball, plotting. Eventually the latter seemed to have been persuaded to relinquish his claim to the free kick – it had to be seen to be believed – and peeled off into the eighteen-yard box, only for the former to float a delightful ball towards the back post straight to… Schofield. The forward took a touch to get everything under control and then larruped a shot past the lime-green top of the Nomads keeper for a very well worked goal.
The visitors decided during the festive orange sucking (oranges weren’t included) to throw caution to the wind and push McNally up front for the second half, the three-pronged attack also meaning that there would only be three at the back. The first-half referee (who had been one of the Nomads players) also wanted a change for the restart – in that he wanted to play – so the venerable Mike Edwards took over the whistling duties, while Jones returned for the disenchanted Andrews (the going was too soft).
It was immediately clear once proceedings got going again that the Nomads weren’t nearly as impressive without the wind behind them. Jones and O’Brien were like men reborn and saw much more of the ball than they had before the interval, and with the wings once again de rigueur the Convo midfield took the game by the scruff of its neck. Houston went close to pulling a goal back with a curling, dipping effort from about twenty-five yards out wide that could only have missed the angle of the Chester goal by inches, but when, under minimum contact, he went starfishing to the ground inside the home side’s penalty area, Richy Schofield did what his colleague couldn’t and from the spot found the back of the net. He nearly had to retake the kick as referee Edwards – who had momentarily forgotten that he had to blow the whistle for the penalty to be taken, and in the end had to be asked to do so (“I was waiting until I was in the right frame of mind” he later explained) – admitted after the game that there had been a fair bit of encroachment, but, hey, it’s Christmas (the club treasurer also called a subs amnesty – hurray!).
With the hat trick on in such blustery conditions it was inevitable that the Seconds’ leading scorer was going to start raining shots in on goal whenever he got hold of the ball. But it was actually McNally who nearly drew the next blood – literally – when he butted the back of a Chester defender’s head at a corner with such force that the crunch could be heard from the other end of the pitch, despite the wind.
The home side restored their three-goal advantage just after the hour mark by taking advantage of the new narrowness of the Convocation defence. A player scuttled down their right flank, leaving Jones in his wake, and from down the side of the penalty area put a low cross past the challenging Willis into the goalmouth, which evaded defenders and attackers alike until it was slammed into the net at the back post, with Rand just unable to intercept in time – the defender swapped roles with Edwards moments later, refereeing the game until its end.
For a little while after that just watching Willis inside his own penalty area was worth the (figurative) price of admission alone, as his luck lurched back and forth from one extreme to the other. An orange-and-black shirt let rip with a venomous shot from twenty yards out that flew past the Convo man, who then made the understandable mistake of turning to see its outcome, only for the ball to smash against one of the uprights and rebound back out straight into his nether regions (your correspondent will never forget the ‘Thwack! Ping! Ooofff!’ combination ‘til his dying day).
Moments after that a deep Chester cross, again from out on Convo’s left flank, seemed destined to loop over all manner of players and plop fortuitously into the back of the visitors’ net, that is, until Willis’ telescopic leg toe-ended it from underneath the crossbar at the last second. The ball sailed high into the air above a writhing six-yard box but, with the sort of luck usually reserved for drunks and small children, fell back down to earth straight into the welcoming arms of the disbelieving Purcell.
The pendulum swung back the other way again, and Jones was in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the home side still on the attack Willis attempted to hoof the ball down the pitch to relative safety, only to leather it straight into the side of his team mate’s face from about ten yards – seldom can a ball have been struck so sweetly – felling the big man on the spot. It was only while the game was stopped so that he could receive treatment that everyone noticed a Nomads player lying prone in the middle of the pitch, also in need of assistance, and the subconscious mind seemed to suggest that he’d been there for some time. Ooops!
An eventful few minutes for Willis was brought to a close, quarter of an hour from the end, when another Chester rocket took the slightest of deflections of one of his legs and clipped the inside of the Convo post on its was into the back of the net. Fortunately for the defender it would have gone in even if he hadn’t made contact, which at least spares him the ignominy of another own goal for his collection.
Purcell prevented it from becoming seven with a good save using his leg when an opponent ran into his penalty area from the left, and Richy Schofield finally got his hat trick by heading an O’Brien cross in at the back post, with a little help from the butter fingers of the Nomads’ keeper.
But the final minutes belonged to referee Rand. Gung ho doesn’t do the closing stages justice seeing as the attacking initiative was swinging like the Krankies, and a lot of that was down to the man with the whistle who was paying not one jot to what was going on. People on the sidelines and players trying to watch what was happening elsewhere on the pitch, there wasn’t anyone he wasn’t prepared to have a chat with instead of refereeing – it was the most blasé performance by an ‘official’ since Ian McDermott disappeared into the bushes for a waz in Kilkenny, while the game continued without him – although he started getting a bit of a funk on when everyone kept asking him how long was left, as he didn’t have a timepiece and was relying on some sort of entity off the field of play to tell him when it was full time (“Why don’t you go and ask him how long is left?” he was overheard growling at the inquisitive, on more than one occasion). Five minutes would pass in reality yet only one would elapse on Planet Rand, but just when it began to look like the game would never end he finally got the sign and called it a day, the second half having been drawn two-all.
The post mortem in the changing rooms came to the conclusion that there hadn’t been enough clichés from the visitors, but the reality was that they were outdone by the youthful brio of their opponents in the first period (it was nice to play a team of youngsters who weren’t dripping in attitude or ashamed of enjoying a game of football with their elders). There was no disgrace in losing as they gave a good account of themselves, and deserved a rewarding pint in the clubhouse… but it was shut. With only the one match on (and a few of the players looking too young to drink, anyway) it’d been decided that it wasn’t worth opening, so a Grinch made off with Convo’s Christmas cheer just when they least expected it, and ruined St Stephen’s Day to boot.
Bah, Humbug!
Man Of The Match: Nobody played poorly (even Stevie: he just didn’t play), but Jelen and Houston were particularly impressive in the centre of midfield, as were Willis and Schofield behind them. Rand was comedy gold as usual and, were it not for the hat trick, might have gotten the nod for his refereeing performance alone. For getting those three goals though, Richy Schofield gets the final gong of the year.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McNally, Willis, Schofield K, Edwards; Jones, Jelen, Houston, O’Brien R; Topping, Schofield R; Subs: Andrews, Rand
Bobby Mimms reports
First impressions last, apparently, so don’t be surprised after this thumping if Convocation’s players hold those who turned out for Northern Vets on Saturday in less than high esteem, if and whenever the two teams meet again in the future. For while it’s in everybody’s best interests that new opponents keep open minds about each other’s practices and mannerisms, there can be no excuse for one of the visitors hollering “Shut it, Dick’ead” in the direction of Paul Dickson, after about ten minutes of this encounter, when the Convo captain started counting out loud how long their goalkeeper had been holding onto the ball he’d just picked up. It was nothing short of a disgrace.
How can any side be respected if they take as long as ten minutes before they get around to telling Dicko to do one?
Seriously though, as the chaps huddled together in the Storrsdale after the match, raising their spirits with stirring rendition of ‘Out of the Blue’ and engaging in a riveting symposium on who within the ranks would be best equipped to read out the classified results on Radio 5 (no prizes for guessing who was the most popular choice*), their initial verdict of the side from Crosby – they’re actually close neighbours of Ramblers, playing only a couple of hundred yards away from Moor Lane – was of a fairly decent footballing team, though not one overly blessed with the Corinthian spirit.
They scored three goals in either half and created numerous promising chances to notch up more, yet despite their obvious superiority the Vets weren’t averse to pushing the boundaries of fair play when it suited them. It turned out that Tasty Turner, Basil Fawlty, Butch Dingle and co. (a list of probable participants had been posted on their website the previous afternoon) were quite adept at being diplomatic with the truth whenever in the vicinity the peripheries of the pitch, and while that hardly threatened to rob the game of its credibility it was nonetheless unnecessary under the circumstances. Dishing out haymakers for no other apparent reason than being challenged for the ball in, what is after all, a contact sport, will always augur anarchy though, and both Ben Prince and particularly Billy Lamb were on the receiving end of the unacceptable bellicosity of an unsavoury character in the Vets’ defence during the game. Apologies after the final whistle are all very well, but thuggery has no place on the football field.
Donning the blue Gardeners’ kit, Convo had gotten proceedings underway with a blood-and-guts spine of Prince and Justin Shanahan at the back, Paul Fairclough and Steve Jones in midfield, and Lamb and Simon Holder up front. The flanks were the domain of players with more sedate inclinations – the thinkers of the side, you might say – and manning them were Jon Kearney, starting ahead of Andy McLaren on the left, and Tim Jago doing the same before Dickson on the right; having been serenaded by a rendition of Eminem’s ‘Without Me’ upon earlier entering the changing rooms, Keith Purcell donned the gloves for his first appearance in what felt like millennia.
The Vets had the ball in the net even before Dickson’s Count von Count impression, when a pass was threaded between Prince and Shanahan and a forward ran on to it to slot underneath the advancing Purcell (who had slipped in the build-up), but the referee deemed the player to have strayed offside and chalked it from the record. The goalkeeper had good reason to give his studs the evil eye moments after that when he lost his footing again, in another one-one-one, although he did make a fine block with his leg as he scrambled back to his feet, and a defender cleared the danger by hoofing the ball back up the pitch.
But the visitors had come flying out of the traps and their explosive start wasn’t going to remain unrewarded for long; several minutes after Purcell thwarted yet another one-on-one, this time blocking a shot… amidships, they had the lead. The ball was threaded out to their right wing, from where the recipient had little problem skipping past McLaren and playing a low cross along the ground towards the far post, and running in behind Dickson – who was displaying some classic Convo backline dithering – a colleague smashed it into the back of the net past the curiously lachrymose #1.
Lamb had the chance to equalise for the home side within minutes, after Jones and Jago had combined to play him through, but with the Vets defence left standing he dragged his shot harmlessly across the goal from not that tight an angle. Provoked by his impudence, the visitors broke down the other end of the pitch and scored a controversial second.
It was one of the first clues that the referee – only a couple of inches of handlebar moustache shy of Charles Bronson – was no Howard Webb. He’d already awarded the visitors a throw-in despite their own linesman flagging in favour of Convo, so when McLaren and an opponent contested a ball near the home side’s goal line and it clearly went out off the Vets player, it was to the surprise of few that the official pointed towards the corner flag. Unsettled by an eerie lack of moaning, Convo defended the dead ball like a horde of zombies and a back post bullet-of-a-header doubled the Vets’ lead.
Only the crossbar rescued the home side when Purcell was lobbed at another one-on-one not long after that, and having survived they made their first changes: Fairclough, Jago and Shanahan were all hooked, while Richy O’Brien, John Flamson (another making his first appearance in yonks) and Kevin Schofield were sent on in their place. The latter of those joined the fray with what appeared to be an uncontrollable urge to give the ball away, and for the first few minutes he was on the pitch it was hospital-ball o’clock.
The changes seemed to quell the visitors’ dominance for a while and their only break in the subsequent ten minutes or so was set up nicely on the sideline by an attempted Dickson back-heel that invariably went wrong. Kearney managed Convo’s only shot on target of the half with a Barnes Wallis effort from twenty-odd yards out, but it bounced harmlessly straight through to the Vets’ ‘keeper and the game seemed to be drifting uneventfully into the interval.
But forever the bane of Convo’s existence, Old Man Trouble wasn’t having that. With a little over five minutes remaining the visitors put a low cross into their hosts’ well-populated penalty area from out on the right wing, and a reflex shot by one of the Vets players was blocked, causing the ball to squirm up into the air. That turned out to be something of a boon for the attacker though as, with defenders strewn around the box like Liberty Leading the People, it dropped back down to him again and from about ten yards out he wacked the thing just beyond a despairing lunge from Purcell.
Playing towards the Rose Lane end of pitch #6, Northern Vets got the second half underway with the wind continuing to blow strongly across the sward, from their left. Convo had made another trio of changes during the break that saw Shanahan returning at the heart of defence in place of Prince, Jago replacing Dickson at right back, and Fairclough coming on for Kearney (O’Brien moved out to the right wing; Flamson swapped flanks), and it went without saying that they needed an early goal if they had any hope of clawing their way back into the game.
And within only a handful of minutes of the restart the ball was indeed nestling in the back of a net, but sadly for the home side it was theirs. The Vets advanced down their right flank and, upon nearing the by-line, pulled back so that the man in possession had the ball on his left foot. He trotted across the moustachioed McLaren (the Second Team’s Mr. Movember) so that his angle with the target widened, and when satisfied with his chances struck a sudden, low drive from fifteen-or-so yards out. The advantages of an early strike were twofold: the shot avoided the attempted block of the left back, and it wrong-footed Purcell. The ball slipped about a yard inside the near left-hand post.
It’s quite possible that the visitors relaxed a little after that, because Convo enjoyed their best period of the match (having said that, some sort of hex seemed to have been placed on the Vets at the break, as one by one during the second half they started pulling up with calf injuries). They still couldn’t buy a fifty-fifty decision off the referee – he repeated his trick from the first half of awarding the visitors a throw-in, despite the advice of the flagman – and Jago had everyone’s hearts in their mouths at one point, when he accidentally stood on the ball and went skidding across the edge of the penalty area like John Curry (before going jibber up, naturally). Purcell made a wonderful save at a free kick when he palmed the ball around an upright after it had been flicked to his left, ten yards out, but otherwise the defence led a fairly charmed life for the majority of the time that was left.
Their consolation goal was scored just as Dickson was getting ready to make his final changes. Lamb was played through down the inside-right channel and forced the Vets’ ‘keeper (Johnny Safehands, according to their website) to save well to his left with an outstretched leg, conceding a corner in the process. The tireless Holder played it short to Jago, who then floated a cross into a goalmouth mêlée (gaining marks of 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0 for technical merit) that eventually fell to Shanahan, and the defender wellied a shot through the serried masses that the ‘keeper’s not-so-safe hands could only fumble over the line.
Prince, Kearney, and Dickson himself, all came back on for the remainder of the match (in place of Holder, Jones and McLaren, respectively) and for a little while Convo had hope. The visitors were hemmed back into the own half and whenever the ball was cleared into opposition territory it would return within seconds; injuries weren’t helping their cause. For a good ten minutes Purcell stood idly on the edge of his area (doing nothing to get rid of those extra autumn pounds) as his colleagues laid siege to their guests’ goal, and Lamb almost netted a second when he was again played through along the inside right channel, but though his shot beat the goalkeeper, it couldn’t get the better of the goal frame.
A slim(ish)-hipped stranger in a flat cap, reeking of badminton, sidled up to the Convo substitutes on the touchline.
And then, without any apparent warning, quite the bobbery broke out in the visitors’ penalty area, and from a distance it almost looked like one of those cartoon clouds with fists and boots sticking out of it. In the middle of all the commotion, Lamb, sporting a newly-gashed eyebrow, was almost apoplectic with rage and accused the Vets’ #9 of punching him; the referee, on the ball as usual, sent both players to the sidelines to calm down. It’s fair to say that Lamb’s adversary possessed a personality any right-thinking person would cross continents to avoid and was, as they’d say in the wonderful world of understatement, a bit of an arse. As he swaggered off the pitch arrogantly he assured his team mates that he’d be “back on in five minutes”, but within sixty seconds another Vets player pulled up with calf trouble and both pariahs returned, without even seeking permission.
A gloomy dusk was starting to fall over Wyncote and the floodlights on the adjacent hockey pitches had flickered into life. The hullabaloo had taken the wind out of Convo’s sails and in the final five-or-so minutes the Vets were the dominant force again although, somehow, the home side avoided a penalty concession when a cross-cum-shot struck Fairclough around the shoulder region and then proceeded to roll down and along his arm as though he were a contact juggler. Quite how the referee failed to point to the spot is anyone’s guess, because such gratuitous ball handling hasn’t been seen since Michael Jackson popped his clogs.
The visitors’ #9 hadn’t taken long upon his return to dive back into the pool of toolery, squaring up to Prince for having the audacity to – if you aren’t already, you might want to sit down – walk in front of him, while at the other end of the pitch his side scored two late goals to give a sheen to their victory: the first a one-on-one lob that Purcell got his fingers to but couldn’t keep out; the second, a defensive farce in which a player fifteen yards out with his back to goal and three opponents surrounding him managed to swivel and get a shot in, finding the far right-hand side of the net with almost the last kick of the game – with the referee’s calf having given in as well, he called it a day seconds after the restart.
While the result might have been a little flattering to the visitors, the outcome of the game most certainly wasn’t; the better team won, no doubt about it. There’s no shame in that, and many players said as much back at the Storrsdale, in amongst comments on Renton Laidlaw, the sons of Abraham, and Fanuary.
But as alluded to at the beginning of this report, it can be quite difficult to shake off a bad reputation, and whenever Wyncote’s finest take on Northern Vets in the future it will always be in anticipation of aggro – which is a shame. A good game is all that Convocation ask for from opponents, because as one wit put it after the game: “We don’t need other teams to pick on us; we’re quite capable of doing it amongst ourselves.”
How ironic then that Saturday was the first time, in a long time, when they didn’t.
Man Of The Match: Nobody played badly, but Shanahan took his goal well, Lamb made a nuisance of himself, and Purcell made a number of good saves. Holder’s work rate was phenomenal though, and it was fitting that he was involved in the build-up to Convo’s goal because he was their best player on Saturday.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Prince, Shanahan, Dickson; Kearney, Fairclough, Jones, Jago; Holder, Lamb B; Subs: *Flamson, O’Brien R, Schofield K
Convocation scored all four goals in this game and still could only draw. Against a decent Ramblers side who, apparently, had beaten their 2nds recently, Convo came back from 2 goals down to snatch a draw with almost the last kick of the game.
The visitors lined up with McNally in goal; a back four of Dickson, Prince, Willis and McLaren. In midfield they had O Brien, Jelen, Fairclough and Kearney with Lamb and Schofield up front. Jago sat on the bench with the late arriving Holder.
After Schofield’s obligatory shot straight from kick off and from anywhere else, both teams settled down to play though the hosts were largely first to the ball. They were finding space on the flanks and the extra man in midfield was causing the visitors problems. Not much more than 5 minutes had gone before the Ramblers left midfielder fired in a cross which McNally flew at with his fist extended (picture Superman after a few pints of stella), got a slight touch of the ball but this deflected it onto Willis and into the net. There was nothing Andy could do about it as the ball flew right at him and he was only a yard out.
The visitors got a bit more into it after this and began to trouble the home keeper some more. Whenever Ramblers broke though, McNally saved well or came out smartish and collected the ball. Up front, Billy Lamb’s pace was causing problems and supported by the midfield, Convo got a foothold in the game. Mid half substitutions saw Jago come on for Kearney and Holder for Jelen. Despite some vigorous attacking from Convo, which created a number of chances, it was the hosts who scored as another cross from the left was headed into his own net by Prince under pressure from a Ramblers striker.
HT 2-0
Half time saw some stern words dished out by Schofield and some tactical changes. McNally moved up front with Willis in goals and Lamb moving to centre half. Jago moved to left back with other “bench twin” Kearney on the left hand side of midfield. This reorganisation worked as the second half saw Convo dominate it. McNally caused havoc with his strong running; the midfield tackled anything that moved (and sometimes things that didn’t) and the defence closed down well. Lamb in particular was superb in nipping in to nick the ball of unsuspecting forwards’ toes. When the ball did get through, Willis, like McNally in the first half, mopped up well. Minor disharmony was caused in the visitors’ defence as a short ball out to an unsuspecting Timbo led to some scrambled defending and after the ball was cleared, there followed a tête-à-tête between the left back and the keeper which, following some rather unfortunate agricultural invective, required the ref to step and calm down.
This seemed to galvanise the visitors even more and they took the game to Ramblers. A cross from Schofield was headed in by McNally from short range and the last 15 minutes saw some great attacking form both sides. With the ref looking at his watch, Convo broke into the hosts’ penalty area and as the ball broke to Jelen on the left of the area, he shot the ball past the keeper into the far corner of the net. Cue major celebrations.
Man of the match. A number of candidates in what was a decent team performance. Jelen and Fairclough did well in midfield alongside a strong running Holder and O’ Brien. Schofield was his usual busy self and set up the first Convo goal well. Special mentions go to McNally who was very good in goals and up front and Willis who likewise was excellent in goals and defended well in the first half. Dickson’s back heel across his own back line but which found the intended target merits special mention. This week’s award, however, goes to Billy Lamb. He ran the home defence ragged when he came on in the first half and as a centre half in the second, was superb in marshalling the back line and nipping in time and time again to break up Ramblers’ attacks.
Convocation: McNally: Dickson; Willis; Prince; McLaren: Kearney; Fairclough; Jelen; Obrien: Schofield; Lamb: Subs Jago; Holder
Since this was the day before Remembrance Sunday, in keeping with the spirit of the times, the pre-match changing room hosted a lively debate about issues including ‘poppy fascism’, Germany and the Queen (one topic), amongst others.
Outside, the greenswards of Wyncote, bathed in November sunshine, provided a glorious setting for the now obligatory pre-match minute’s silence, during which your correspondent was reminded that a moment’s reflection was not inappropriate, since we were after all playing at the Geoffrey Hughes Memorial Sports Ground. For those not in the know, the luckless Geoffrey, a wealthy Liverpool man, having joined up (been commissioned that is) in 1914, and repatriated twice, finally bought it on the Western Front in August 1918. It was in his memory that the Hughes family donated to the University the playing fields on which we have spent so many happy hours.
Observance complete, the game got under way with neither side gaining a decisive advantage in the early stages (Western Front again… ). Convocation’s defence was well-marshalled by Billy Lamb, and playing a higher line than has recently become customary proved successful in denying the visitors much in the way of goalscoring opportunities. For their part, Convocation were keen to get the ball on the ground, and managed to put together some decent passes, though the threat too often withered in the final third.
The industry and endeavour shown by Richie Schofield and Adam Jones meant that Convocation always seemed likelier to make the breakthrough, and so it proved, a few minutes before half-time. Kearney crossed accurately from the left and Adam did well to get something (not quite sure what) on the ball, to guide it past the Northop keeper from close range.
The second half began with Convocation still endeavouring to pass the ball, and putting together some decent moves, though the end product remained elusive. Fairclough and Steve Jones were influential in the centre of the field, but our opponents also stepped up a gear, with some spirited attacks down the flanks. An equaliser came, however, in banal fashion. A free kick close to the centre-circle was hoisted (get it in the mixer style) into the home team’s penalty area whereupon some unfortunate ricochets culminated in the ball being stabbed home from the edge of the six yard box.
Next, we saw something not witnessed since the Quarter Finals of the St. George’s Cup in 1996. Those that know their Convo ‘istory will confirm that this was the occasion when one John Topping scored from the second half kick-off to set in train one of the club’s most famous victories, against Young Boys of Clunn. By the end of that game at the Simpson Ground, we were ‘only twenty three places from Europe’. But that, as they say, is another story. On this occasion, the hero was former tank man Richard Schofield, whose long-range, Big Bertha effort from the restart described a perfect trajectory, before falling just under the silver-haired Northop goalie’s crossbar. That the congratulations were just a tad subdued may owe something to the knowledge that, delighted as we were to see this one go in, the ratio of goals to attempts from impossible distances/angles from this particular player might not stand up to a rigorous, pro-zone type analysis.
Northop were not to know, of course, the infinitesimal chance of a speculative Schofield effort finding the onion bag, otherwise they might have been driven to surrender by the unlucky hand that had been dealt them. Instead, they came back strongly, testing the resolution of the Convo back line. For a long period, they got little change from Lamb and his cohesive defensive unit, but then two goals came in quick succession: one from a corner that was not cleared effectively, the other from a saveable short from the edge of the box that unfortunately took a deflection. In so doing, it incapacitated Convo keeper Mitcho, by bending his thumb in an unpleasant direction. This was galling for the defenders who had looked comfortable throughout most of the game.
Mitcho’s ‘blighty wound’ meant that The Bear was called up to deputise, and Convo went in search of an equaliser. All stuck to the task well, and the pressure began to mount as the time ticked away.
It looked as though it was not going to be our day, however, as three chances fell in quick succession to the hapless Kearney, who squandered them all. His blushes (or perhaps a further whitening of the youngster’s already pallid complexion} were spared, when the still energetic Adam Jones was upended, having beaten the opposing goalkeeper to a fifty-fifty ball, earning the home side a last gasp penalty. Schofield stepped up and scored comfortably.
Three all at the final whistle and not an unfair result, but if either side deserved a victory it was Convocation.
Man of the match.
A fair to middling all round performance, and certainly much better than last week. The central midfield pairing of Steve Jones and Paul Fairclough was solid, Adam Jones did sterling duty up front. Richard Schofield was his usual energetic self, weighed in with two goals and might have been a candidate. However, his performance was marred by incessant complaining and (like some latter-day General Haig), naïve tactical recommendation. So the award goes to Billy Lamb, whose calm organisation of the back line was first rate, and who also exploited his legendary acceleration to make some telling interceptions.
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; Edwards, Prince, lamb B, Jones N; Kearney, Jones S, Fairclough, O’Brien R; Jones A, Schofield R; Subs: Dickson, McLaren, Topping
Bobby Mimms reports
While immolation may have been more poetic on the anniversary of the Catesby conspiracy, Convocation’s Seconds chose death by a thousand cuts instead. On Saturday they were once again the architects of their own downfall in a match that they could have won several times over; a match that they were actually winning with a little over ten minutes remaining, but which they managed to lose quite comfortably in the end after putting their feet up to admire their opponents’ pretty passing. In fact it’s fair to say that by the time the nutjob referee blew for full time, with the first pyrotechnics of the evening exploding into the sulphurous sky, the team from Wyncote were hanging on for the relative respectability of a two-goal defeat as though their lives depended on it – the defensive obduracy though, was too little, too late.
Equivalently, stamping out the internecine poison that yet again infiltrated the changing room can’t happen quickly enough – but sadly, it probably never will – and when you consider the not-so-friendly fire that the majority of the side had been subjected to throughout the match, it was little wonder that they imploded so spectacularly in the home straight. Afterwards, in the Storrsdale, Simon Holder suggested that the defeat was partly due to so many of the players being “mentally fragile”, but regular castigation from team ‘mates’ will do that.
Last week’s high farce – in which Convo scored two own goals in a three-all draw – at least proved that there is some sort of collective spirit amongst the ranks, as they showed a strength of character to recover from a losing position. But quite why they should be such different creatures, week in, week out, is the million dollar question: perhaps those most inclined to undermine their colleagues efforts with finger-pointing vitriol should stay at home when they feel like bringing their problems to football with them, because their inability to dissimulate isn’t fair on anyone else.
Lamb and Schofield – of the Billy and Richy varieties – had gotten proceedings going, and it took less than three minutes for the official to lay his figurative cards on the table and pull Andy McLaren and the Radbroke Hall #21 aside to warn them that they would be taking early showers if there was anymore… jostling at throw-ins. Presumably if the man in black had ever trained to be a judge he would have given up upon realising that he couldn’t send litter louts to the gallows; you knew then that it was going to be one of those games – although stand-in goalkeeper, Chris McNally, taking a shot full in the face during the warm up had also been a bit of a giveaway.
Sporting a luminous-yellow (Dortmund-esque) kit that could induce migraines if you looked at it for too long, the visitors took the lead in the seventh minute, and while there was nothing lucky about their breakthrough it did have the fortunate side effect of provoking their hosts’ first hissy fit of the afternoon. With a slight breeze behind them the Radbroke Hall midfield flicked a goal kick on for one of their forwards, who had slipped effortlessly between the central-defensive pairing of Andy Willis and Kevin Schofield, and from the edge of the Convo penalty area he half dinked, half curled a shot over McNally and into the top corner of his net. Even that early in the game it was too much for the younger of the defenders and he squealed his displeasure at the #1 for having been a couple of yards off his line, despite him playing in an unfamiliar position and being the one of the two who had been faultless in the excellently executed concession.
Obviously, judging by Schofield’s histrionics, there was no point in playing the remaining eighty-odd minutes as Convo couldn’t possibly come back from such a formidable blow; the rest of the team weren’t ready to throw in the towel that early though, and, against all the odds, they drew level before the defeatism could become rampant. Mike Edwards – playing centre mid alongside Joel Jelen – almost did it within seconds of the restart when he had a shot from just outside the eighteen-yard box that the Radbroke Hall ’keeper plucked from the air, in a fairly routine manner, just before it passed under his crossbar. But within moments of that slight chance Richy Schofield tried his luck from thirty(ish) yards out (much to the well-placed Lamb’s chagrin – you know there’s problems if even Billy Lamb is grumbling), and then headed home unchallenged from the corner won due to a deflection on his original shot.
Laid on by left winger Jon Kearney, the former First Team captain had almost scored when he’d curled a shot a foot-or-so over the visitors’ bar while the game was still goalless. But just after the quarter-hour mark had passed, and with an incongruous smell of toast wafting across the pitch, he further made up for that earlier near miss by launching a free kick into the Radbroke Hall area from out on the left flank that fooled everyone gathered there as it passed straight through to the ‘keeper, and he could only fumble the ball over the line in surprise. Schofield was on a hat trick after less than twenty minutes.
Other good chances had already been wasted by the home side, with both Lamb and Jelen being thwarted by the guests’ #1 before his unfortunate brain fart – although, admittedly, the former only failed to score because of a good save, rather than due to shooting straight at his opponent as the latter had. Despite having fallen behind, Convo had definitely started the stronger and could have been several goals in the lead rather than just the one, so the continual kvetching that was rippling throughout the team was somewhat mystifying. But then, within sixty seconds of having fallen behind, a Radbroke Hall player gained possession and advanced along his right flank, drifted inside under pressure from left-back Andy McLaren and rocketed a shot past McNally from the corner of the penalty area to once again level the scores.
No one had played below their usual standards up until that point, but then without warning some of the Convo players’ performances became incredibly sloppy, and the overall display suffered as a result (it was almost as though they were riddled with nerves). For several minutes their defensive organisation was shockingly poor, with marking being dispensed with at a couple of corners and a protective wall going the same way at a Radbroke Hall free kick just outside the area, but a dog-leg approach to the back line was the story of its afternoon and the eventual defeat was its subsequent comeuppance. Even Kearney, who had been closing opponents down quickly and playing well in general, suffered from a slight slump during this mid-half phase, and at one point had to be bailed out by McNally’s knee, having lost possession in the middle of the pitch (without the slightest hint of irony Willis gave the winger a blast of hot air after the ‘keeper’s block, despite the ball having travelled half the length of the pitch – and past him in person – in the process of the move).
Galumphing along the other flank during the opening quarter of the game had been a combination of John Topping and Paul Dickson, but with neither men having been involved much in proceedings during that time (not always the worse of Convocation offences – especially for defenders) the latter chose to replace himself at right back with Tim Jago. Moments later the club chairman had his first real intervention in the game when he was played in on goal from the centre of the pitch by Lamb, but the veteran’s pass wasn’t the greatest and, from a narrow angle, Topping could only fire straight into the welcoming arms of the Radbroke Hall #1.
There followed a trio of substitutions, staggered pointlessly over only two minutes, although the first of them was forced upon the home side as McLaren had to retire due to a chest infection. Simon O’Brien replaced the vice-captain, but Richy O’Brien and Simon Holder joined him on the pitch before he’d even touched the ball (with Edwards and the younger Schofield making way for them), and the latter of those two combined well with Kevin Schofield to set up Lamb within minutes of coming on, although the forward’s finish was nowhere near as good as the cross that had fed him and he fired well over the opposition crossbar.
He would go close again before half time, forcing a corner when his tight-angled shot was blocked and put out, after Topping had played him through down the inside-right channel. But as the interval loomed it was Radbroke Hall who had the best chance to take a lead into it, when they took advantage of a gaping lacuna left by the wandering Schofield and one of their players outpaced Willis, only for a team mate to have his shot blocked bravely near the penalty spot by Jago after it had been pulled back from near the byline; right on the peeps another effort, created when the left-back O’Brien (S) was caught faffing about on the flank, sailed wide of McNally and the target.
Eventually the visitors got the second moiety underway (because Convo had gotten the first one going – there was no chicanery in this match), and for almost its entirety play was end to end. Just as in the first half the sack of badgers masquerading as a referee didn’t wait long before reminding everyone who was supposedly in charge, and pulled up Convo’s human tinderbox, Willis, for pushing at a free kick, warning him that any more of that heinous behaviour and it would be ‘off’ – on the home bench everyone rubbed their hands together in anticipation of the possible fireworks to come, should the two mad bastards go head to head again.
Needless to say they eventually did, but beforehand the official started to lose his rag with everyone, and Willis actually scored. Richy O’Brien – who had gone close with a headed effort (set up by Topping and Lamb) in the first few minutes of the half – won a free kick in the middle of Radbroke Hall territory and Kevin Schofield floated it into the penalty area, where the inevitable call for offside was heard as the defence tried to catch out any over-enthusiastic opponents. The man in black was perfectly place to see that Willis hadn’t been though, and in his own postcode’s worth of space the hot head shinned the ball across the ‘keeper and into the net.
Only moments earlier he’d been gifted the first real reason to flip his lid (and there are nearly always a few) when, again, he’d been in acres of space in the visitors’ eighteen-yard box as Kearney – who, someone had observed in the first half, “runs like Eric Liddell” – took a throw-in to Topping. But when the chairman opted to have a shot himself, instead of squaring the ball to his unmarked colleague, Willis let rip with an insubordinate blast despite the effort only just being turned over the bar by the Radbroke Hall #1 (the subsequent corner came to nothing).
Lambasted by a loon, no one would have been surprised if Topping had just given up football (and even life) there and then, but it took another couple of minutes before his afternoon was over and he was hooked along with Kearney and Lamb in Convo’s final (intended) substitutions of the game. Dickson, Edwards and Richy Schofield returned in their places, respectively, with Jago moving up onto the right wing, and Richy O’Brien moving out to the left; nobody told him to, but the atrabilious Kevin Schofield moved into the ‘anywhere but where I should be’ position usually occupied by his brother, and the gears of Radbroke Hall’s comeback spluttered into action.
Damning invective continued to be offered forth to his team mates by the increasingly unhinged Willis, and he had to be warned about his language when he screamed that they were a “lazy bunch of twats” shortly after the game recommenced following Convocation’s player swaps. But by then everyone knew that there was no chance of him being sent off, as the referee’s regular hollow threats had shown him up to be all huff and no puff. In fairness to the official, if you ignored the paper tiger impression with regards to discipline (or, at least, his perception of what discipline was necessary), he did have a good game when he put his mind to just running it, rather than ruling it.
From out on the left flank one of the O’Briens played a deep ball to the far side of the visitors’ penalty area, with about twenty minutes remaining, and Jago found himself in the perfect position to swing a leg at it, but could only half-slice his shot. However, as the yellows regrouped and tried to clear their lines, the ball ended up in the possession of Edwards, and from just outside the ‘D’ he thumped an effort goalward that took a crucial clip off an opponent just as it seemed to be heading for the back of the net. Moments later, at the other end of the pitch, Radbroke Hall had their own corner – which was just as inept as Convocation’s had been after Edwards’ shot – but the home side managed to hoof the ball upfield and Jelen played in Holder to run at the lone defender. After several seconds of the two dosey-do-ing not far outside the penalty area, the Convo man grew impatient and fired in a shot that sailed high and wide of its intended target (and the wooden frog that someone had stuck into the ground behind it).
Radbroke Hall just weren’t getting the breaks in their hosts’ half – the ball wouldn’t bounce in their favour and even the pitch itself seemed to be ganging up on them (clear through on the yellow-shirted, Star Trekking McNally in the opening minutes of the second period, one of the visitors looked certain to fire in a shot when a terrible bobble caused the ball to veer off at an angle just as he swung his leg at it) – and it appeared that their spirit was starting to wane in the face of their opponents’ somewhat fortunate resistance. But you can never underestimate the reserves of haplessness that Convo can conjure up in their hour of need, and although he wouldn’t have known it at the time, Holder’s poor shot with a quarter-of-an-hour remaining would be the home side’s last, after which their attack fizzled out like a damp squib.
In just two minutes they somehow managed to turn a single-goal lead into the equivalent deficit through a combination of gung-ho naïvety and schoolboy defending. McNally did well to claim a long-range effort that took a wicked deflection off Jago, but with a little over ten minutes remaining he had no chance with a free header from just outside his six-yard box, after Willis had lost possession in the middle of the half and Radbroke Hall had crossed the ball in from their less-sunny left flank. And within seconds of the restart Convo had ceded possession again, the ball had been looped forward over their ball-scratching rearguard, and, with a little help from one of the uprights, the one-on-one with the goalkeeper ended as the header had moments earlier.
Even before the game could restart for the second time in a minute Willis was marching off the pitch, a swarm of wasps in his head, and telling the infirm McLaren to get back on; shortly after that Richy O’Brien had to retire with his shoulder (well he was hardly likely to leave it – thank you, we’re here all night – try the fish) and Kearney returned in his place. But with the defence half dead and spread out across the sward it was only ever going to be the visitors that scored again, regardless of Kevin Schofield’s glory hunting, and McNally’s knee was all that came between them and a fifth, when he turned a shot around the post five minutes from time.
Naturally, the goalkeeper’s efforts turned out to be in vain: moments later, with a typical November wind starting to get up, Radbroke Hall attacked again down their left flank, and at the second time of asking got the ball to an unmarked forward who belted it low down the middle of the goal to seal the victory. They nearly made it six in the last minute when McNally cleared a back pass straight to a loitering opponent, but having glided effortlessly past the distinctly uninterested Schofield (K), his face like pissed-off thunder, the man in yellow came out second best to the #1’s knee once again.
Dispiriting to the end, the final whistle was met with a resigned shrug from most of the home side, as though they hadn’t just thrown away a very winnable match. But then, like some sort of footballing Stockholm Syndrome, the vanquished Convo players had probably begun to believe in their own worthlessness, as drummed into them by their bullying – and let’s not beat around the bush: it is bullying – team mates. Tell a man he’s a dog often enough, and eventually he’ll begin to bark.
X-rated petulance, as exhibited by those so sure of their own abilities, went a long way towards costing Convocation this game, and similar behaviour has done in the past on a regular basis. But the sad thing is that those same players don’t seem able to see how destructive they’re being to the team, and as a result there’s little chance of them learning anything in the subsequent defeats. The old rhyme may ask us to remember the happenings of the fifth of November, but the shenanigans that occurred on this particular Bomby Night weren’t far off being unforgettable.
Man Of The Match: Amid such roguish and scurrilous behaviour everyone who didn’t spend ninety minutes in a funk deserves a mention, but especially Kearney and Jago who both played above and beyond the call of duty, under duress. McNally gets the nod though: in letting in five he may not have had a sparkler but he was the only one willing to put his neck on the line, and he did make a number of good saves to boot.
Convocation (4-4-2): McNally; McLaren, Willis, Schofield K, Dickson; Kearney, Edwards, Jelen, Topping; Lamb B, Schofield R; Subs: Jago, O’Brien S, O’Brien R, Holder
Bobby Mimms reports
With the world population expected to have hit seven billion over the weekend there are now roughly 6.99999995bn people on the planet who have never scored an own goal for Convocation; who needs them though, when on Saturday a couple of foot-shooting recidivists were up to their old tricks. Seemingly defying the known laws of physics, John McLachlan somehow managed to net past himself in the first half of the encounter – oggy number two in the club’s colours, by your correspondent’s reckoning – but it was one of those freak goals that do happened from time to time (even if they seem to happen to Convo more than most other teams). However, when he and that bane of Convocation goalkeepers, Andy McLaren, combined to put the ball into the back of their own net deep into the second period, everyone present immediately knew that they’d witnessed a thing of self-defeating beauty.
Their gaffes might not have mattered so much had the players at the other end of the pitch not frittered away so many promising chances, but not for the first time the boys from Wyncote were the architects of their own frustration. The young Halton Castle ‘keeper didn’t even have to make that many interventions as the majority of shots on his goal were off-target – with one culprit in particular conforming to Brian Glanville’s description of the “brainless bull at the gate” – but it still takes some doing for a team to create the lion’s share of a game’s chances, score five of its goals, concede only three, and yet not win.
Mind you, at least they didn’t give up when the Mcs’ dance of the damned left them two adrift with less than twenty minutes remaining. The visitors must have wondered with disbelieving glee just how they’d found themselves in the ascendancy, as they had done precious little to deserve the 3-1 lead and immediately started wasting time as though they didn’t trust their ability to hold on to it. Their instincts were right of course as Convo scored a late brace to snatch a draw, and by the time the Halton Castle #6 came on for the final few minutes (a player who wouldn’t have looked out of place on an Edwardian cigarette card) his team were clinging on grimly to what they still had, as their hosts dabbled in gung-ho football looking for victory.
Had they found a late winner Convo would have probably have deserved it, despite all the cock-ups and profligacy, as they’d been the better team even in the first half when a pretty fierce wind blowing the length of the pitch had aided the visitors. Once the roles were reversed after the interval the Halton Castle players seldom got near to the home side’s goal – although, as it turned out, they didn’t have to – and it spoke volumes that, the concessions aside, McLachlan spent ninety minutes as a glorified ball boy.
A lot of that was down to the excellent industry of his midfielders and strikers. The red-and-black shirted visitors played the majority of the game with a lone (twenty-two year old) forward and five in the middle of the pitch, yet despite being numerically disadvantaged – at least in theory – the Convo midfield still held the upper hand. The wise old heads of Mike Edwards and a grizzled Joel Jelen pulled strings sedately in the centre of the quartet, while John Topping and Jon Kearney supplied the dynamism on the flanks, but with Richy Schofield exuding energy as the norm and regularly dropping back from his advanced position, and Billy Lamb constantly lurking on the shoulder of the last man, ready to stretch his legs at the right pass, it was actually Halton Castle who found themselves pulled all over the place and overrun.
They had to try and keep the ball on the floor during the first half as it would otherwise sail through to McLachlan – who was unfairly reproached by Paul Dickson on a number of occasions for playing too deep (even though he had too) and being slow off his line – yet with several capable ball players in Convo yellow on the pitch they were not much better off when they did. On the few occasions that they did get close enough to the home side’s goal to try and use the elements to their advantage, the target proved to be thoroughly elusive.
The home side were just as unsuccessful from distance when they were attacking with the wind after the interval, but then again there was only the one player who even considered shooting on sight an option. Richy Schofield had skewed the only decent (non-scoring) chance of the first half across the face of the Halton Castle goal just before the teams swapped ends, and no one could begrudge him for it as he’d worked hard to get into a good position inside the penalty area in order to do so. But in the second period, with his side chasing the game, he wasted valuable time on a number of occasions by cracking shots from thirty or forty yards that would sail harmlessly into the distance, and needless to say the opposition were never in a hurry to retrieve the ball from its far-flung climes.
After Convo had fallen three-one behind he also tried a shot straight from the restart, and though the Halton Castle ‘keeper hardly had the stature and height of Petr Cech (even if he did have the Chelsea stopper’s name and number on his back), his handling was sound all afternoon and he had no trouble plucking the ball out of the air on his line. Schofield’s efforts were becoming more and more Adam-esque in their ambition, but even he had to admit that it wasn’t going to be his day when, inside the final quarter of an hour, he one-two-ed his way through the Halton Castle penalty area and shot low towards the corner of the goal from just outside the six-yard box, only for the #1 to somehow get a leg to the ball and deflect it up over his crossbar – it was a very good save.
By then the visitors had squandered their lead and were trying to hang on to the draw. Edwards could have snatched a winner for the home side with a low drive in the final few minutes, but a last-ditch deflection of a defensive bent thwarted his intentions, and Kearney – who had suffered a dog’s abuse throughout the game from what he described as “distasteful characters” – did himself no favours by directing the subsequent corner straight into the side netting of the Halton Castle goal (the youngster had also riled one of the visitors at a throw-in, when Convo were still losing, by insisting that he hurried up – the arse in question suddenly decided that his boot laces needed fixing, although he very quickly realised that they didn’t when the referee wandered over brandishing his cards).
Dickson irked former colleague Jeff Lambertsen with a very dubious throw-in call when he was running the line – in the loosest sense of the verb – having been replaced by Chris McNally after half an hour, and further infuriated Edwards with his “disappointing cross-chest flagging”; he wouldn’t shut up about “Freddie Mercury at Eton” either, for some reason. An impromptu rendition of ‘Please Release Me’ by Engelbert Humperdinck drifted across the pitch and through the drizzle at one point during the second period, subconscious proof that Convo’s relentless attacking was getting to some of the beleaguered visitors.
But they survived the onslaught and left an overcast Wyncote with a share of the spoils – something that they hardly deserved, yet something that they were probably slightly miffed about. It was Supersub McNally who had spoiled their party with two headed goals in the final quarter of the game – the first a somewhat cumbersome affair as he simply seemed to fall into the diagonal cross like a felled redwood; the second a back-post header after Kearney had played in Lamb to waft the ball into the six-yard box almost from the goal line.
Chairman Topping did well to lay on Kevin Schofield for Convo’s first, moments before half time – a goal that possibly offered a modicum of closure to the centre back for his part in McLachlan’s tribute to Norman Wisdom. For it was he who passed the ball back to his goalkeeper from near the left-hand corner flag (so it actually went sideways rather than backwards), en route to it ending up in the back of the net for Halton Castle’s opener. It came across the body of the #1 on his near post and he attempted to hoof the thing up the field first time, despite the gale blowing towards him; unfortunately, he also sliced the ball horribly with his (rather large – just saying) right foot, putting so much back spin on it that it started revolving faster than an electron in the Large Hadron Collider, and before you could say “Mr. Grimsdale” the visitors had the lead. Rumours that the wheels fell off McLachlan’s car on the way home remain unfounded.
He hardly covered himself in glory at the second concession either, letting Ben Prince know that he had “time” when a hopeful ball was pumped diagonally into the largely-deserted Convo penalty area, even though time was exactly what the big defender didn’t have. The young lawyer playing up front for Halton Castle was lurking just behind him but, none the wiser, Prince let the ball run across himself and was about to turn to take it back up the pitch when his opponent darted in and stabbed it past McLachlan.
It was the third Halton Castle goal though, that really summed up the afternoon for Convocation and epitomised the horrific spirit of the Hallowe’en weekend. One of the visitors became bogged down amongst opponents on the (Convo) right flank and lost the ball to the elder Schofield who, with no other red-and-black shirts in the vicinity, prodded it inside in the direction of the covering McLaren. The vice-captain trundled after it as it bobbled along the ground towards the ‘D’ while McLachlan came out from his goalmouth to collect it (he actually called for it), and suddenly everybody else on the pitch froze and fell silent, like animals sensing an imminent earthquake.
You could almost hear the big-top music striking up as the two closed in on the ball, and as zero second neared you could see from their body language that McLachlan was resigned to McLaren turning with it, while McLaren was getting ready to tap the thing to McLachlan. You can’t really blame the goalkeeper for not being fully aware of the danger he was in; of not having played when his predatory colleague scored possibly the greatest Convo own goal ever (and there’ve been some doozies over the years). But everyone else in yellow watched the denouement of the move through masks of fingers and, sure enough, the big man knocked the ball straight past his #1 and towards the open goal. Hilariously, they both stood with their shoulders slumping and stared as it rolled towards the line as if they couldn’t believe that such a scenario was possible, and though Prince chased after the loose ball with an opponent in tow it ended up in the back of the net anyway (the defender couldn’t be sure whether he’d managed to prevent it crossing the line before the Halton Castle player got to it, but the Convocation Dubious Goals Committee has since awarded McLaren his fourth own goal).
In the time it’s taken to read this report the number of people who haven’t scored past their own ‘keeper in Convo colours has probably grown to over seven billion, but if Saturday’s shenanigans are anything to go by it’s the next big thing. Surely there’s an opening in Asia for the club to exploit there…
Man Of The Match: McNally rescued his club on his return from exile in the Firsts, Kearney did well under fire and Jelen must have benefitted from not having many games under his belt. It was the club treasurer who made things tick on Saturday though, so Edwards gets the gong.
Convocation (4-4-2): McLachlan; McLaren, Schofield K, Prince, Dickson; Topping, Edwards, Jelen, Kearney; Schofield R, Lamb B; Sub: McNally
Just one hour after having failed in their Guinness World Record attempt at getting the most people including kit into one car for an away game (we managed 7!) Convo turned up to play Sandbach vets, the starting (and finishing XI!) was McLachlan, McLaren, Edwards, Prince, Willis, Crockett, Kearney, Jones, R O’Brien, Topping, B Lamb.
The game started fairly evenly with both sides managing to get the ball down and pass it around despite the fact that the pitch was bobbly and the grass was long.
Midway through the first half came the opening goal when a ball played over the top of the static back four and saw the Sandbach centre forward beat the onrushing McLachlan to the ball and round him and roll into the empty net.
The response from the away side was swift though and after some sustained possession Topping was put through and with the keeper to beat he calmly took the ball round him and slotted into the empty net.
Both sides were now attacking and both defences were struggling to cope with the amount of chances that were being created, one of these chances saw Sandbach take the lead again when good play saw Convo get outnumbered at the back and the ball finally fell to the Sandbach right midfielder who drilled the ball low and hard into the net.
A horrific refereeing mistake prevented it becoming 3-1 just before half time when Prince tried to clear the ball, kicked it the wrong way and the Sandbach forward accepted the gift and rolled it into the net only to have his celebrations cut short as the referee had deemed him to be offside despite the fact it was a Convo player who had played him in.
Half time followed shortly afterwards and despite being disappointed at the scoreline there could be no faulting the effort, especially across the midfield where Kearney, O’Brien, Jones and Crockett had been tireless throughout the half.
The second half got under way with a few players looking slightly weary but with no subs to use they were just going to have to struggle on.
Despite the weariness Convo were the first to strike in the second when Billy Lamb was played through and coolly slotted the ball under the keeper from a tight angle to make it 2-2.
Soon after Convo were to go 3-2 ahead when Topping was to find himself in space on the right side of the box and with the ball sitting up nicely he calmly lobbed the keeper, out of nothing Convo had suddenly scored twice and taken the lead again much to the surprise of their hosts.
The game ebbed and flowed for the next twenty minutes with both sides having chances and Sandbach being denied by a good save by McLachlan after it seemed certain that Crockett would score an own goal and then great defending by Willis who then calmly headed the ball to his keeper despite the fact that he was stood on the line himself.
Convo were starting to tire though and Sandbach were able to bring on three subs in the last fifteen minutes to give them fresh legs and unfortunately for the visitors this was to prove crucial.
The game was becoming more and more a case of whether Convo could hang on to what they had but unfortunately two goals in five minutes was to turn the game back in Sandbach’s favour, firstly after the ball fell loose in the box it was drilled low into the corner and with Convo becoming more and more tired an almost identical incident saw Edwards foul the centre forward and as he fell to the floor he managed to get a good enough connection on the ball to send it into the back of the net and make it 4-3 to the home side.
The by now exhausted visitors were unable to respond again as the lack of subs had really taken its toll during the second half and the game meandered it’s way to the finish.
Man of the Match - Despite the defeat though Convo should be pleased with the performance and especially the effort from everyone involved with notable performances from all the midfielders plus Lamb and Topping up front but the man of the match award goes to Steve Jones for an excellent performance with and without the ball throughout.
Robert Lindsay reports
There's something about the trip to Northop Hall that seems to have a deflating effect on Convocation's second team. It occupies a sort of strange no-mans-land, just over the border into Wales, yet lacking the ‘Welshness’ of, say, Denbigh or Halkyn. It seems to be constantly bathed in an ever present grey, North Waleian gloom (often accompanied by a steady drizzle), and regardless of which of the two pitches is used, conditions will inevitably be more favourable to students of the Dave Basset School of football tactics. Saying that, although not ideal, the surface on Saturday was an improvement on the usual extremes of either a: comparable to the surface of the moon or, b: a patch of rutted boggy ground apparently lifted from Martin Mere.
Whatever the reason, the effects are clear, and a quick look through the record books tells it's own story. Since the 01/02 season Convocation have travelled to face Northop Hall Nomads on 7 occasions. The results are as follows:
P 7; W 0; D 0; L 7 F 10; A 31.
The omens, as they say, were not good.
And fortunes didn't look like turning around for Convocation 2 minutes in, when a simple through ball was played between Shanahan (partnering K. Schofield in central defence) and the left full back McClaren. Neither player could intercept the pass and the Northop forward held off Shanahan's challenge to slot under the deputising 'keeper Willis. The central defender perhaps cautious with his tackling, without so much as some rolled up newspaper to protect his shins, having left his kit at Ramblers the previous week.
Convocation, to their credit, then took the game to their opponents, and although the pitch didn't encourage free flowing football, the early goal made for an open, end-to-end game. Fairclough and Jones were marshalling the centre of the park well, Kearney was working hard down the left, but the main threat was coming from the trio of Schofield (R), Prince and Lamb - the latter officially starting on the right, but his movement and pace meant that he was able to strecth the Northop Hall back four, creating space for the front 2.
A slick move down the Convo right ended with the aforementioned Lamb grazing the outside of the post from distance; good work by Prince and Schofield down the left caused confusion between the Goalkeeper and Centre half and the ball somehow deflected wide (the referee inexplicably giving a goal kick), but shortly after a hard won corner resulted in the same pair combining for the equaliser. Schofield whipped the ball in from the left and it was met powerfully by the diving head of Prince at the near post. 1-1.
It hadn't all been one way traffic though, and Northop Hall still posed a threat at the other end, with their giant No. 9 deciding the best tactic was to terrorise the right back, Dickson. But despite a number of forays into the Convo danger area, Willis was barely troubled until 30 or so minutes in.
Another attack down the left resulted in a low ball being played in across the 6 yard area. The 'keeper was rooted to his line, while the back four (presumably terrified of notching an o.g.) were equally statuesque facing the goal, thus allowing the ball to reach the grateful forward at the far post, who was more than happy to tap in for 2-1. This, naturally, led to a detailed and rational analysis between 'Keeper and back four (Willis and Schofield), into what had just occurred and how such a concession might be avoided in the future.
Half Time: 2-1
The second half followed a similar pattern, but without the goal threat. Convo had undergone a re-shuffle, and the new full backs of O'Brien (S) and Jago, (with Hoban and Schofield (K) now in front of them on the wings) offered more from an attacking perspective, which in turn took the pressure off the centre halves of Shanahan and his new partner, Prince. Jones was still pulling the strings in midfield, but Lamb was less effective partnering Schofield Jr, who also lost his impact by becoming embroiled in a 15 minute skirmish with the highly irritating and highly strung Northop Hall full back. The referee, to his credit, got most decisions correct and every one involving these two went (correctly) Convo's way. However Schofield didn't help his cause by reacting to the defenders constant niggles; it clearly affected his game and for a brief moment it looked like things might boil over. The Northop manager eventually took the sensible decision to pull off his man - diffusing the situation before his player exploded in a tiny ginger mess - but unfortunately for Convocation, that settled Northop, and the remainder of the game was largely played in the middle third with little goal threat at either end.
Convocation never really looked like getting the equaliser their approach play just about deserved, but this was never going to be one of the more common heavy defeats of previous seasons, and overall was a competitive game between 2 evenly matched teams.
Full Time: 2-1.
Hopefully next year the Chaps can get a win in Northop. In the meantime it's now:
P 8; W 0; D 0; L 8 F 11; A 33.
M.O.M.
A good first half performance from Lamb and Schofield (R) didn't last through into the second half, and Schofield (K) also shone in sporadically, but for his consistency and quality, the nod goes to Steve Jones who was a calming influence in the middle, linking the back four and forwards and keeping the ball better than anyone else on the pitch.Pub Banter.
When asked by a Northop Hall player to nominate their man-of-the-match, a short confab ended with the bear concluding (with some volume) that this should go to “the dickhead with the daft haircut” (I might be slightly paraphrasing), realising too late that this was the same player that had come over to politely enquire.
1-0; 1-1(RS); 2-1; HT; 2-2(RS); 2-3(PF); 2-4(BL)
Convocation (4-4-2): McLaren; Kearney, Shanahan, Schofield K, Dickson; Topping, Fairclough, Jelen, O'Brien R; Lamb B, Schofield R
Neville Cardus reports
This was a game which had most things: a goalie in pinks socks; all four goals for one team from outside the area; a “Roy Carroll” incident; yellow cards (one of which later rescinded); and a referee who was eccentric in an old fashioned sort of way i.e. mad. Fiction? An unlikely episode of “Dream Team”? Read on.
In the absence of Dickson and McLaren, Kev Schofield assumed the managerial sheepskin. His hilarious wind up of players as they came into the changing rooms with “you’re not down to play today. What are you doing here?” put everyone in a jaunty mood as they took to the faraway pitch number 10, which last season functioned as the lacrosse pitch.
It was on the walk to the pitch that it first became clear that the ref was “unorthodox” to say the least. Your correspondent had the first taste of the official’s humour in the car park where he had made a “geese” joke; they were all good on the wing apparently. Laughing politely, we moved on until the ref was asking about the Convo game. Your correspondent explained that it as a veteran’s friendly, only to be met with the response from the ref “there’s no such thing as a friendly”. He went on to share his experiences about a friendly match in Walton Hall last season where before the game kicked off, one of the players was swearing at the ref. “he didn’t do it for much longer” I was told. “Is that because you booked him straightaway?” I asked innocently. “No; I threatened to hit him” came the reply. “I then sent him off after a minute anyway”. He may have had a point about there being no friendlies in Walton Hall but this looked like it would be a strange afternoon for these two teams.
The home side lined up with Wheller in goals; sporting a new pair of bright pink socks to go with the pink top and gloves and looking more like a lobster with every game: a back four of Jago and S Obrien at full backs and Prince and Willis at centre halves: a midfield quartet of K Schofield, Jelen, Jones and Hoban, and the two Ritchies up front O Brien and Schofield. Holder and Topping were on the bench, largely because they were last out of the changing rooms.
Convo started the game quite sprightly. They moved the ball around well though there was a tendency on such a small pitch for the direct back to front hoof to be used and as such, service to the strikers wasn’t great though they ran the channels well. The visitors on the other hand, were a bit more patient and played the ball through the middle were worrying gaps were appearing from the home side.
Still, it was against the run of play when Whitegate took the lead. Their midfield was allowed the freedom of Wyndcote and when their central midfielder shot from some 25 yards out, the ball seemed to swerve leaving Wheller on his heels and the ball flew past him into his left hand corner.
Within two minutes, however, Convo were level after a well worked goal which came from back to front. Jago played it out to Kev Schofield who played it inside to Jones. Steve laid it forward to Hoban who played Richie Scofield into eels again and dropped over his desperate flapping and flailing into the net. Barry kept on flailing and flapping and got the ball out of the net but everyone had stopped as it was clearly a goal; all except the ref who waved play on. Unlike Roy Carroll at Old Trafford, the keeper and his defence all told the ref (obviously in a non-Walton Hall friendly tradition) that the ball had gone in but he was having none of it and waved play on. In fairness to Whitegate they got on with it though one of their players was booked for the use of rather agricultural language in remonstrating with the ref.
After this bizarre incident, the game settled down and if anything, Convo got on top but were still second to most loose balls. Jago and R O Brien came off with Holder coming on up front and Topping going to right midfield and Kev Schofield moving to right back. Just before half time, however, Willis had an “over me” moment with a long ball out of Whitegate defence (in true Convo style this had been a corner for the home side) as he missed a header and the Whitegate centre forward (called Percy rather confusingly in honour of the missing Convo keeper although there were two “Tims” marking each other as well to complete the confusion) lobbed the ball over Wheller, again from outside the area. The ref then whistled for half time with the visitors 3-1 up.
No changes were made at half time but the home side flew out of the traps. Topper missed the easiest of headers from Hoban’s cross a minute into the second half and Richie Schofield peppered in the shots. Topper then missed a one on one with the keeper blasting the ball into the garden behind the goal but a minute later, a square ball from Richie Schofield was met by the incoming Topper and he smashed the ball high into the net. Game on and the visitors were wobbling. Hoban was running the visitors ragged down the left and linking up well with his full back Simon OB. It was one of these moves that led to Convo’s equaliser as Simon played the ball to Hoban, carried on his run and as he took the return pass, he managed to turn the ball round the corner to Richie Schofield who smashed it past the keeper into the far corner of the net.
The ref’s cameo continued, meanwhile. When a Whitegate player handled the ball, the Convo calls for handball were rejected with the frankly bizarre response from the official of “he only used one hand. Play on”
Hoban and O Brien S had run themselves to a standstill not long after so Jago came onto left back and Richie O Brien came into right midfield with Topper moving to the left. The game was still the home team’s to win. The midfield of Jones and Jelen were working hard and it was a mistimed tackle from Jelen which saw his name go into the book. Richie Schofield smashed a shot off the junction of the bar and post but it was Whitegate who scored next, which ultimately proved to be the winner as the ball fell to one of their players (needless to say outside the area) and his first time shot went across Wheller into the net.
Still the drama wasn’t finished. Another Whitegate attack saw four of their players bear down on Wheller and the one defender still back, Timbo. Wheller saved one shot and in the process injured himself. As he lay on the ground, the Willem Dafoe lookalike for Whitgate took a shot from a couple of yards out which Jago blocked. As the ball broke again to the Whitgate player, his next shot was cleared by Jago off the line and then again, whilst Wheller struggled on the ground and the home team stood transfixed by this re-enactment of Rorke’s Drift, the other Whitegate striker tried to slide the ball home from the edge of the six yard box only for Timbo to block it again and finally clear it. As the game then stopped to allow Wheller treatment, another Whitegate player was booked and as the ref took an age to write the player’s name, there was a cry from S Obrien on the sidelines “you couldn’t book players quicker could you ref?” at which the official looked daggers at the miscreant. (God help us if he ever has to book Jan Vennigor of Hessellhink).
There was just time for one last Convo attack but that was that and the ref blew for full time. Again he was looking to book someone else and this time Simon shouted “do you need a new book ref” at which the ref asked for someone to hold the recently –returned flag. “why?” was asked. “Cos I am going to hit him” came the almost inevitable response. The ref wasn’t finished either. When he came into the home changing room to get his match fee, he rescinded Jelen’s yellow card on the grounds that he “didn’t like away teams”. He still wanted £20 from our subs as fines for the bookings (which he didn’t get) though I suspect this was just another example of his humour though I couldn’t quite be sure….
Overall a decent performance from Convo and an enjoyable game which the hosts felt slightly disappointed to have lost but did get a huge slice of luck with the disallowed goal so fair play to Whitegate.
Man of the match. A number of candidates this week. Timbo for that defensive episode; Jones and Topper for their hard work in midfield and Simon O Brien who showed poise in defence and set up the third goal. On any other day, Richie Schofield with a goal and two assists would have got it but after the game he announced he was leaving to join the Firsts but then rejoined the Seconds when we sang about how much we loved him, so the award goes to Hoban for his hard work on the left and good all round play including helping the defence out.
Convocation: Wheller: Jago; Prince; Willis; O Brien S: Schofield K; Jones; Jelen; Hoban; Schofield R; O Brien R. Subs: Topping; Holder
Jimmy Buffet reports:
On the weekend leading up to the mass eviction of a number of travelling families from Dale Farm in Joel’s beloved Essex, the Convocation Vets made their annual trip to the insular peninsular that is Wirral. I’ve always been bemused as to why the peninsular which separates Liverpool from our Welsh neighbours is generally prefixed by ‘the’ as in ‘the Wirral’; and so I would like to take this opportunity to inform our readers that when referring to ‘Wirral’, if you want to use the word ‘the’, you should addend with the word ‘peninsular’. So, (and I know you should never begin a sentence with the word ‘So’) it’s either ‘Wirral’ or ‘the Wirral peninsular’; please take note.
With a later 3 o’clock kick off (our founder would be proud), we set off in our car with a foursome of Andy Mc, Kearny, Richie Oby and the captain himself driving. For some reason Dicko had Kathy Kirby’s greatest hits cd on. For those of you who don’t know, Ms Kirby, who also hailed from Joel’s beloved Essex, was reportedly the highest-paid female singer of her generation and is best known for her cover version of Doris Day's "Secret Love" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in second place with ‘I Belong’. According to Dicko, she was the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe; allegedly had an affair with Bruce Forsyth and hers was the first gig our music loving captain went to see when he was 5.
Well here we go to Wirral, and after much moaning from the passengers in the tunnel, (paid for by Andy), the music was changed to Radio 2 and as we entered into the sunlight of Wirral, a more apt tune could not have been chosen and the chaps joined in with Justin Currie and his colleagues from Del Amitri singing ‘Nothing Ever Happens’. ‘By five o’clock everything’s dead, and every third car’s a cab, and ignorant people sleep in their beds’ sang Glaswegian Justin; but, was it not local MP Frank Field who described a Saturday night out in Wirral as being like a ‘wild west town on crack cocaine’?
The visitors arrived in dribs and drabs at Plymyards to be welcomed by the heavily tattooed grounds man and were promptly directed to the children’s nursery in which to get changed. Choosing the yellow kit, the boys lined up with Mitcho in goal, a back four of Andy Mc at right back, Kevin and Willo twin centre backs, and Patio Dave making a welcome return at left back. A solid midfield consisted left to right of Barry Wheller, Paul Fairclough, John ‘lazy boy’ Kearny and Richie Oby, with Billy Lamb and Joel Jelen up front. Keeping the bench warm with Captain Paul Dickson was Richie Schofield.
Wyncote’s finest were patient and superior for long periods of the opening 15 minutes and only occasionally made life difficult for themselves, but with the stabilising effect of Mitcho in goal behind the unflappable Willis, this was the only small blotch on an otherwise decent beginning to the game. With Wirral playing with a very high back line, the opposition were looking vulnerable to some great long balls from the keeper and Schofield senior, matched by some great running from both Lamb and Jelen upfront and it was one of these long balls to midfield, pushed through to Lamb which left Billy one on one with the opposition keeper. It was almost a blast from the past as Billy who it seems has played for the Club for around 30 years calmly pushed the ball past the advancing keeper to give Convo a well-deserved lead after 18 minutes: 1 – 0.
At 23 minutes Wheller who was fading following his cycle ride from Wavertree was pulled off to be replaced by Schofield junior and the game continued apace for the rest of the half as the home side were forced to shoot from distance whilst the south Liverpool boys were mysteriously regularly called offside by the ‘friendly’ referee sporting ‘Birkenhead’ on his shirt.
Following the half time break Dickson replaced Andy Mc, and Barry returned to the fray for Kearney. The second half opened with intermittent pressure from the home side and Kevin Schofield starting to wind up Andy Willis who had been imperious at the back. Thankfully Willis ignored the school teacher’s taunts and continued to play his authoritative game – quite why Kevin chooses to moan and wind up his team mates is beyond me as it only helps the opposition – but perhaps that can be a subject for another day.
Constant pressure from the away side eventually paid off as a loose ball was picked up by Captain Dickson who calmly passed to the energetic Jelen whose selfless play throughout the game was an example to some younger players. Jelen took the ball sideways for 10 metres passed a through ball to Richie Scho resulting in a wonderful curling shot from 25 metres, 2 - 0. As the ball nestled in the bottom right hand corner of the Wirral goal, there was no way back for the boys from the one eyed city, and so this appeared to give the official carte blanche to arrive at some dubious decisions which all favoured the home team.
One example was a through ball to Richie Oby who seem to have a plethora of defenders between him and the goal which was inexplicably called offside by the official who was at least 25 metres away. I have known the young O’Brien for over a decade and he is a gentleman – if he says he was onside, then I believe him. Another incident saw Lamb who, responding to his Captain’s call in times of need ran Wirral’s back four ragged only to be scythed down for a certain penalty. The only time such a spot kick would not be given would be if a similar occurrence happened in the home penalty area at Old Trafford when Mark Clattenburg is officiating.
The final 22 minutes saw Kearney coming back on for Patio Dave; (for those of you who don’t know, the Patio is a wonderfully intimate restaurant on Church Road opposite Penny Lane and gets 4 stars out of 5 on Trip Advisor – the food and service is top notch and a visit to the Patio with your ‘other half’ will definitely come up trumps, if you catch my drift) and in the last 15 minutes a corner from the right hand side found its way to Richie Oby who shot for the top left hand corner, the ball cannoned off the lunging Willis and nestled in the top right hand corner. 3 – 0 to the University of Liverpool Convocation!
The only remaining action saw a tired Barry being replaced by Andy Mc who went up for a corner only to fall on the diminutive goalkeeper’s head which led Ian ‘none shall pass’ Mitchell to remark: ‘’his head will be like Frank Sidebottom’’. This was followed by an inexplicable decision by the referee giving a free kick to Convocation when Kev tripped over his laces after having cleared the ball – obviously trying to even things up following the dodgy penalty and offside calls. That was it for the football and so onto the Hooton Arms pub for after match refreshments. Although we had been to the Hooton several times before, the giddy heights of victory obviously affected the victors from the Lancashire side of the Mersey and after travelling in the correct direction along Stanley Road and parking in the car park they entered the hostelry. Dicko said things looked a bit different and enquired from a local regular of the hostelry: ‘Is this the Hooton Arms please my man?’ ‘No!’ answered the well refreshed Wirralian, ‘It’s the fucking twilight zone’. Mm mm, this obviously is not what we expected from our erstwhile Cheshire Yeomen and a quick exit from the car park and 300 metres further down the road was in fact the Hooton Arms complete with 3 real ales, plenty of Chile and rice (too many beans in the 3 portions Andy Mc consumed) and a very attractive barmaid who wore an off the shoulder number.
A wonderful afternoon’s entertainment was had by all and with Dickson’s meticulous fixture planning this one visit remains the only game in Wirral this season so in the inimitable words of Justin Currie, we can ‘Kiss this thing goodbye’’.
Man of the Match: Everyone contributed and played for each other, but special mention should go to Mitcho in goal who inspired confidence throughout, Joel who never stopped running and passing throughout the game, and Billy Lamb who rolled back the years at centre forward but the vote this week goes to Andy Willis who was faultless at the back, ignored the winding up, and popped up to steal Richie Oby’s goal.
Moan of the match: You know who you are, picking on and criticising your own team mates does nobody good except the opposition. Cut it out!
Bobby Mimms reports
The Convocation bandwagon returned to HQ on Saturday, but the homecoming was something of a disappointment. After a summer during which the club has been busy spreading the word in Eastern Europe, the bread and butter of the Seconds’ first game back at Wyncote appeared to be too much of a chore for a lot of the players and, just as last week, they deservedly took nothing from a poor performance. The long weekends of barbeques and B&Q may be over for another year, but it would appear that far too many of the chaps have still to shake off the clement-weather cobwebs.
Even during the warm-up they hardly oozed confidence, and after the umpteenth practice shot on the bounce drifted away into the distance without bothering Ian Mitchell betwixt the sticks you sort of got the feeling that it wasn’t going to be their day. They donned red shirts (having originally opted for yellow – they still had the xanthous stockings on though) and lined up in the footballing missionary position (i.e. 4-4-2), with a back four comprising of Justin Shanahan and Kevin Schofield bookended by Barry Wheller and Andy McLaren, and a midfield quartet of Joel Jelen and Paul Fairclough in the centre, Tim Jago and Jon Kearney on the flanks. Billy Lamb and Richy Schofield started up front, the referee had an uncanny look of Damon Grant from Brookside about him, and with it being the second week of September the good old orange ball was called into action.
The visitors got the game underway with a textbook kick off – really great to see – but the early initiative was with their hosts. Lamb was played clear through in the opening few minutes and should really have scored, despite the portly Rhewl ‘keeper advancing to meet him (admittedly, at a pace more akin to the movement of tectonic plates), but with half a mind on an imminent possible clattering the Convo man dinked his perfectly-weighted shot just off-target.
Shortly after that the two Schofields combined to set up Kevin for a shot, but from thirty yards it was going to take something special to get the better of the visitors’ #1, who merely plucked the effort out of the air from underneath his crossbar. Richy almost showed his elder brother how it should have been done, later on in the half, when he tried his luck from roughly forty yards out, but was a crossbar’s width just as unsuccessful.
By that time though, the home side were trailing. A Rhewl player had won possession on their right flank before playing a delightful defence-splitting pass diagonally through to a colleague in the centre of the pitch, and he, after taking a touch to control the ball, rifled the thing into the roof of Mitchell’s net as he neared the penalty spot. Such was the ruthlessness of the shot there was nothing that the ‘keeper could have done to prevent the goal, but Schofield (of the Kevin variety) decided that the rest of the team could claim no such immunity and launched a banshee-esque tirade at no one person in particular.
It must have been the former vice-captain’s time of the month though (it lasts for three weeks and he has seven days off), because his criticism was a little unfair; Convo had started the game reasonably well, and if anyone was to the blame for the opening goal then surely it was his centre-of-the-defence, who’d let the goal-creating pass slip by them. The midfield were more than holding their own, with Fairclough breaking up the visitors’ moves as they began and Jelen passing the ball around well (although Jago seemed to be moving around as though performing some sort of constipated Riverdance), and the front two were pulling the Rhewl back line all over the place in their search for the ball.
Lamb had another good chance to score after twenty minutes, having been played in by Jelen, but his shot from just inside the opposition penalty area caromed off a defender for a corner, which was then flicked out for a second one only for a goal kick to be awarded (the referee mustn’t have noticed the flick, as he otherwise had an excellent game). Not long after that though, the two combined again when the midfield man played an excellent disguised pass through to his mucker (it was so well disguised that a collective groan went up from the rest of his team mates, although they all went shtum the second it became clear what a good ball it actually was), but with no challenge to worry about the forward fired tamely into the side netting.
For about ten minutes the game swung back and forth between the opposing penalty areas, as the two teams took it in turns to attack and no one tried to slow proceedings down. Even the goalkeepers, ideally placed to put a foot (glove) on the ball, seemed to encourage the gung ho approach, and Mitchell in particular would regularly instigate the next attack as soon as he’d gained possession to end the previous one (having said that though, he hoofed an inordinate number of kicks straight out for throw-ins during the first period).
However, despite the end-to-end football it was the visitors who looked more settled and most likely to grab the next goal. Three times in the following ten minutes they ripped through the Convo back line like it was a wet newspaper, and three times the Convo back line stopped for offside rather than take their cue from the official – their appeals were futile though, because on each occasion he was in a perfect position to see that that the players involved were not offside.
McLaren could have done better to intercept the first chance, but was far too slow, and could thank his lucky stars that the subsequent shot was straight into Mitchell’s midriff. A covering defender, no matter how plodding, was a luxury that the Convo back line couldn’t afford at the visitors’ next foray through the middle, when a yellow-and-black-striped player found himself one-on-one with the ‘keeper and tried to lob him from the edge of the penalty area. From the Welsh side’s perspective the ball dropped the wrong side of the crossbar, so several minutes later when they found themselves in an almost identical situation the man on the ball went for power instead, but blasted his shot across and wide of the target.
Convo had four substitutes waiting on the line for some action (as you do) and, unusually for him, Captain Paul Dickson chose to deploy them all at once, on the half-hour mark. Alongside himself, on went Ben Prince, John Topping and Richy O’Brien, while off came McLaren, the elder Schofield, Fairclough and Jago, with the latter complaining that he could have taken the Sunday papers on with him, such was the lack of activity on the left flank (he must have forgotten about the goal – and the fact that it was Saturday). The home side managed the changes in personnel seamlessly so within sixty seconds they allowed the visitors another shot on goal, but again it was straight at the blushing Mitchell (he had on Wheller’s pink number).
If Jago thought he’d had a quiet time out on the left flank then he should have spared a thought for Kearney, who just hadn’t been in the game up until then. But ten minutes before the interval the youngest player on the pitch nearly troubled the scoreboard with an attempted cross into the Rhewl penalty area that drifted much closer to the goal than he’d intended and which the blue-shirted ‘keeper needed to tip over his crossbar. In clearing the resultant corner almost to the centre circle the visitors must have thought that the danger had temporarily passed, but then a terrible and unnecessary back pass played in Schofield (R), who did all the hard work in rounding the #1 only to blast his shot wide of the unmanned target.
He repeated the shot off target a minute or two later after he’d one-twoed his way back into the Welsh side’s penalty area with a bit of help from Kearney, but aimed for the changing rooms in the distance instead of the opposition goal. And by the time he tried his luck from the halfway line with barely a minute-or-so remaining, not only was the red mist descending (no more pop and Smarties for you, young man), but Rhewl had scored a second with an unmarked header from a deep right-wing cross – Schofield’s shot had been the restart.
There was enough time remaining for the home side to win and waste a free kick just outside their guests’ penalty area – three reds stood over the ball as it was taken – and for the referee to flip the bird at the Convo bench before he blew for the break. Wheller came off and had a similar grumble as Jago, complaining that “no one can hear you scream when you’re playing at left back” (he must have forgotten about the second goal).
With the sun to their right Convo got the second stanza underway, playing with the slight breeze that had had no bearing on the first half blowing from behind them. No changes had been made during the interval, yet it seemed impossible to believe that the same eleven players had re-emerged for the restart as had finished the first half, as the visitors ran amok for nearly ten minutes.
Mitchell might have considered himself unlucky not to have kept out Rhewl’s second goal just before the break when he’d gotten a good hand to the effort, but he was certainly fortunate to scramble a tight but tame shot around his right-hand post, somewhat unconvincingly, after Convo had ceded possession out on the right flank and Dickson had been brushed aside far too easily. The goalkeeper then went some way to settling jangling nerves when he got a vital fingertip touch to a left-wing cross, with two yellow-and-blacks running in behind him, but it seemed to have been in vain when the ball was pumped back into the goalmouth again and a third Welsh player was gifted the easiest of open-goal tap-ins. Incredibly though, the man in question somehow let the ball roll underneath his foot and away to safety.
The Convo defence was all at sixes and sevens, and every time the ball was cleared Rhewl just kept on coming back, suggesting that the midfield were no better. But the visitors weren’t capitalising on their overwhelming superiority, and were contriving to miss the easiest of chances: another Welsh shot, from twenty-five yards out, was again straight at Mitchell, while moments later a cross from out on the left flank was hoicked over the crossbar from only three yards out.
A brief respite, during which a Richy Schofield shot was pushed out for a corner that came to nothing by the considerable frame of the Rhewl ‘keeper, allowed the Convo rearguard to regroup momentarily, but then back the visitors came again. Down their right flank they attacked, the winger with the ball skipping past a Wheller lunge (after everyone on the sideline had implored the left back not to dive in) before spanking a shot against the angle of the goal frame from just inside the penalty area. Moments later Topping was disposed in the middle of the pitch and the visitors tried another lob, this time from forty yards out, but Mitchell was its equal and caught the ball on his line.
In between those two chances Wheller had come off – desperately sucking in lungfuls of air as he did so – to be replaced by John Littler, who had only turned up to watch but had been coerced into throwing on a top. It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the former club secretary that he only lasted a quarter of an hour before a niggle in his hamstring forced him to retire (McLaren returned in his stead), but in his time on the pitch Convo looked much more solid at the back, and Rhewl were held at bay.
Indeed, as ominous grey clouds drifted in front of the sun (just as well they had the orange ball) and a bit of a breeze got up that was likened to the mistral, Shanahan had the home side’s best chance of the game up to that point, when he curled an effort inches over the Welsh side’s crossbar after Richy Schofield had played him in, twenty-five yards out (it had actually been a free kick given for a foul on Lamb).
There was a further flurry of substitutes as Dickson rolled his last dice: the elder Schofield returned in place of Prince (who would come back on again moments later when Lamb pulled up lame), Fairclough replaced Jelen, and Jago and his Observer took over from Kearney. It was the captain who looked like he could have done with a rest though, when he inexplicably failed to intercept a diagonal cross-field pass, thus allowing the Rhewl left winger to drift into the home side’s penalty area and rifle a shot in from (a tight) ten yards out that Mitchell did well to block.
As the final fifteen minutes neared there was still no sign of Convo getting their act together, although for a brief moment you had to wonder whether an old ally might have been trying to gee them on. The visitors attacked down their right flank once again and put a great cross in towards the back post of Mitchell’s goal, where a player shaping up to shoot suddenly collapsed into a heap with no one near him. It was undoubtedly the calling card of the Wyncote Sniper, and it looked like he had those fellows in the yellow-and-black livery lined up in his cross hairs.
It didn’t distract Rhewl from what appeared to be their mission – to waste as many chances to put the game to bed as possible – but after another Dickson cock up just in front of his own goal gifted one of the visitors a free shot at a point several fathoms above the Convo crossbar, the home side suddenly came to their senses and started throwing the kitchen sink at their guests, along with the bath and the water tank from the loft as well.
Richy Schofield had one of those twenty-yard shots that he’s usually so reserved about taking on, while his namesake, O’Brien, headed wide from the edge of the six-yard box under pressure. They had a good shout for a penalty when the Cruyff-esque McLaren was sent sprawling in the area, having gone up for a corner, but the referee decided that the idea of the Seconds’ vice-captain being sent sprawling by anyone other than a mountain gorilla was just too ridiculous a concept and waved play on.
And then just when hope seemed to be evaporating for the home side, they went and scored to set up a nail-biting finale. Topping – who moments earlier had had a thirty-yard punt drift well wide of the target – won a corner that was taken by the younger Schofield, and before you could say ‘nepotism’ he’d delivered it to his brother who was prowling on the edge of the D like Max Schreck at a paedophile convention – the defender didn’t need an invitation to shoot and thumped the ball into the top left-hand corner of the visitors’ goal. Game on!
Having played the majority of the game in first gear though, Convo just didn’t seem to have the appetite to up their tempo when they needed to. Their only half-chance of note in what little time was left came about when a mazy Richy Schofield run was brought to an end by a foul right on the edge of the Rhewl penalty area (the excellent referee tried to play the advantage, but it never came off), and his subsequent twice-taken free kick caused a rumpus in the goalmouth that appeared to include a rogue hand – but whose?
Conversely to their hosts, all Rhewl wanted to do was run the clock down, yet they inadvertently managed to conjure up two great opportunities to give a gloss to final scoreline. Firstly Shanahan had to head the ball off the line at a corner, while in what turned out to be the last move of the game they gained possession from a Convo throw and ended up blasting a shot across the face of Mitchell’s goal.
The club’s association with the Gardeners having apparently come to an end, it was all back to the Storrsdale after the final whistle, where it was almost impossible to get served seeing as the place was absolutely full to the gunwales for the Liverpool game – not that any of the Seconds’ players really deserved a liquid treat. Saturday’s wasn’t a bad performance, just an insipid one, but nonetheless it was an infuriating one. Rhewl were clearly the better team on the day and warranted their win, but they never looked in control of the game and with a bit more enthusiasm Convo could have taken advantage of their obvious flaws.
When they’re in the mood they were on Saturday though, the Wyncote side wouldn’t take advantage in an increase in atmospheric oxygen, so perhaps the best thing they can do with this result is put it behind them and get on with the rest of the season. It’s early days yet, and there’ll be plenty of time for them to make fools of their critics in the months to come.
Man Of The Match: Simon O’Brien. A first-class performance by the stand-in official.
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; Wheller, Shanahan, Schofield K, McLaren; Jago, Jelen, Fairclough, Kearney; Lamb B, Schofield R; Subs: Dickson, O'Brien R, Prince, Topping, Littler
Convocation (4-4-2): Wheller; McLaren, Willis, Schofield K, Jago; Kearney, Fairclough, Jones, O'Brien R; Jelen, Schofield R; Sub: Dickson
Bobby Mimms reports (sponsored by Galahad Lager)
The spectre of the mid-season break raised its ugly head again in Crosby on Tuesday evening, as Convocation’s Seconds gained a semblance of revenge for the right royal rogering they received from Ramblers in their previous match by putting the same opponents to the sword in semi-impressive fashion. The churlish will point out that the only reason for the ten-week phoney war is that the 2011-12 campaign started about fifteen minutes after the last one ended and that it was actually summer, but regardless, is this result not the proof needed that some sort of hiatus within a season can be beneficial?
Well actually, no. For a start, the home side’s personnel were unrecognisable from the team of young butchers’ dogs that walloped Convo back in June, and came out of the traps so slowly that you had to wonder whether they were in a catatonic stupor in the opening phase of the game, so it was nigh-on impossible for the Wyncote side not to play better than they had on their last outing. As well as that, with the visitors having wrapped the game up by the middle of the first half they took their collective foot of the pedal, and the second was a non-event for them (hence the ‘semi-impressive’ of the opening paragraph). It was only that Ramblers just couldn’t get the rub of the green after the interval that prevented them staging what would have been a deserved comeback.
Once the tardy Joel Jelen turned up towards the end of the first half, mooched around the side of the pitch for twenty minutes and then deigned to get changed, Convo had fifteen men at their disposal; for the majority of the game though, they had just the fourteen. The Wild Man of Borneo, Matt Round, began in goal, behind a back four of (l to r) Mike Edwards, Andy Willis, Kevin Schofield and Andy McLaren. Paul Fairclough and young Ben Igglesden started in the centre of midfield, with Jon Kearney to their left and Richy O’Brien the right, Ben Prince and Richy Schofield leading the line ahead of them, and Barry Wheller, Steve Jones and Paul Dickson chomping at the bit on the sidelines – not a pretty sight.
After a minute’s silence for a recently-deceased Ramblers player, the home side got the game going but found themselves behind after only three minutes. Igglesden charged the ball down out on the left flank and played an easy pass forward for Kearney, who in turn laid it off to the younger Schofield, and from a little over twelve yards out the forward netted to the ‘keeper’s right despite being man-handled by a defender.
Within ninety seconds of the restart Prince had been played through one-on-one with the Ramblers #1, but his attempt to lob his opponent as he advanced was obviously still at the drawing-board stage as the ball sailed miles over the crossbar and nearly cleared the clubhouse behind the goal to boot. The big man’s over-exuberant effort was soon forgotten though (except by your correspondent, obviously), as Schofield scored again moments later to double Convo’s lead. Kearney dispossessed one of the home side out on the wing and played the ball to Prince, who had made another perfectly-timed run to stay onside, and from near the left-hand corner flag he pinged it across the penalty area to his striking partner. Having intercepted the ball, Schofield dragged it back to evade a challenge and then slotted into the opposite corner – 2-0.
It was an explosive start to the game for Convocation, and three minutes later it got even better. The midfield were working like demons closing everything down as though their lives depended on it, and when Igglesden won the ball again, on the halfway line, he played a fantastic diagonal pass for Schofield to run on to, and from the edge of the Ramblers penalty area the ex-army boy pulled the trigger for an eight-minute hat trick, with only eleven on the referee’s timepiece.
With the horse having well and truly bolted the home side finally got around to closing the stable door, and for a while they pacified their guests. Quite why they had been caught so off guard is anyone’s guess, but the visitors’ overwhelming superiority in midfield must have been as much a surprise to themselves at it was to their dazed opponents. Igglesden was a neutron star of pent-up energy while Fairclough was his usual methodical prober, and with Kearney and O’Brien exhibiting the levels of enthusiasm that you would associate with the start of September (but which seldom last in Convocation players into October) Prince and Schofield were spoilt for assistance.
As the midway point of the first half neared they nearly combined to recreate Schofield’s second, but a Ramblers defender intercepted the final ball in the nick of time, proving that at least one of the home side was awake and alert. Moments before that, the hat-trick hero had tried his luck from thirty yards out but his shot drifted wide of the target, and after a twenty-minute period of surreality normality seemed to be returning.
A moment of sloppiness from O’Brien gave a Ramblers player the chance to get a shot in from just outside the Convocation penalty area, but he’d obviously only been watching Schofield in the previous few minutes, as opposed to earlier in the game, and his effort never troubled Round once it left his foot.
The twenty-two-and-a-half minute mark is Dickson’s default time for making substitutions and Tuesday was par for the course, although there was a slight variation on a theme. For reasons only known to himself the captain decided to stagger the changes over several minutes, rather than make them all at once, so after the he’d sent Jones on to replace Prince (with Willis moving up front) the game continued for about thirty seconds until the ball went out of play again, when he flagged to the referee that he want to swap another couple of players. Wheller went on in place of Kearney, play recommenced, and the next time it stopped Dickson signalled once again that he wanted to adjust his line-up.
This could have begun to irritate the official were it not for the fact that the reason the game had halted momentarily on the second occasion was that the visitors had scored again. Round had thrown a quick pass out to an out-of-position Richy Schofield – otherwise known as ‘Richy Schofield’ – and the forward had skilfully turned a Ramblers player coming up behind him before playing a perfectly weighted ball through to Willis, and one-on-one with the home side’s ‘keeper the defender-cum-forward made no mistake, slotting to his left to make it four-nil. There were still three-quarters of the game remaining and, with Convo playing such joined-up football, you wouldn’t have blamed the home side for worrying that they might be on for the sort of hiding that United had given Arsenal at the weekend.
The game restarted with Dickson entering the fray in place of O’Brien (Edwards moved out to the wing), and in a moment of high absurdity his first real contribution to the game was to slice an attempted clearance straight into the guts of a nearby Ramblers player, despite having almost the whole pitch to aim for. As their man rolled around on the deck in obvious distress the home side must have wondered what they’d done to upset the gods, and for a while they seemed more intent on playing the official rather than the game.
But their luck started to change five minutes before the interval, and Willis was instrumental in kick starting their improved fortune. Richy Schofield won the ball near his own corner flag – don’t ask – and played a long, long pass for his striking partner to chase, only for him to whack it straight at the Ramblers ‘keeper (admittedly from a tight-ish angle) when he finally caught up with it inside the opposition penalty area. A cooler head might well have made it five-nil, but at least on this occasion Willis deemed the ball worthy of expending a bit of energy on – several minutes earlier, an almost inch-perfect cross into the box, again by Schofield, had been curiously spurned by the forward.
There were two more chances of a goal before the man in black blew for the break, and both fell to the home side, although the first of those was a slightly ambitious half-volley from the edge of the Convo eighteen-yard box that Round caught without moving. The other was a much more promising prospect, right on the stroke of half time, and started with a free kick for offside in their own half; the ‘keeper launched it forward, a team mate flicked the ball on, and one of the Ramblers forwards was sent through one-on-one with Round, but scandalously dragged his shot wide of the target when the heat was on.
[Half-time rhetorical question: why does Ramblers’ clubhouse have a chimney?]
Bedecked in the red Hub Café kit, the visitors got the second period underway but were immediately on the back foot. In the first five minutes Ramblers scuffed a shot wide of the target from only ten yards out, bulleted another straight at Round from even closer (albeit, a tighter angle), forced the goalkeeper into an excellent low save to his right, and struck the underside of his crossbar with a header at a corner – the ball was subsequently cleared to safety. Although it seems impossible to believe that the Ramblers captain might subject his charges to anything as uncouth as a ‘hairdryer’, something had definitely given them a kick up the rear during the interval (can’t rule out Willis), even if the ball still wouldn’t bounce in their favour.
Convocation, on the other hand, had re-emerged with a similar ennui to that which their hosts had entertained forty minutes earlier (without asking the referee had knocked five minutes off each half), and could count themselves lucky that it just wasn’t happening for the home side. Their only chance of the second period was created by O’Brien (back on for Willis; Kearney and Prince had also returned in place of Edwards and the elder Schofield, respectively) and wasted by the younger Schofield, although in fairness the Ramblers ‘keeper did make a good save with his foot… after the Convo man had fannied around with the ball for a little while.
Within sixty seconds of that it was 4-1. Somehow, on a Ramblers attack, McLaren ended up on his hands and knees inside his own penalty area with the ball stuck up his arse (not literally, of course), but after he managed to shake it loose – like “a conker falling out of a tree”, apparently – an opponent ran in from the direction of his left flank and wellied the thing past Round and into the back of the net. Although it shouldn’t have, the sight of such a bizarre sideshow happening less than ten yards in front of him probably distracted the ‘keeper.
It should have been the perfect springboard for the home side to launch a fight back, but the last twenty minutes were pretty much entertainment free, and they could only muster two mid-distance shots that both cleared the Convo crossbar. Jelen eventually came on for a quarter of an hour, replacing Dickson – who had earlier made an hilariously bad attempt at a back heel just outside his own penalty area, and was likened at one point to a weeble – but the visitors’ only other move of note was when Wheller went off on one of those McManaman-esque runs down the wing that he tries now and again, and which always seem doomed to failure. It failed.
Perhaps when games fizzle out like this one did it’s proof that there’s no need for a mid-season break after all, as Ramblers didn’t turn up for the first period and Convo couldn’t be bothered in the second so both only played half a match anyway. Seriously though, the team from Wyncote can be glad that their opponents allowed them to do as they pleased in the opening twenty-five minutes because, regardless of Captain Dickson’s “problems with charity”, that head start was probably the only reason that they got anything from this.
Still, they made hay while the sun shined, and as they’re notoriously slow starters to a season – it’s taken them thirteen weeks to record their first win in this one – any victory before the gloom of autumn isn’t to be sniffed at. All teams will struggle to handle Convo when they play as they can do, and as they did at the start of Tuesday’s game, so it would seem that they’ve just need to work on prolonging their purple patches.
(On a special spectral note: did Ramblers have someone called Timothy Claypole playing for them on Tuesday?)
Man Of The Match: Although it was all Ramblers in the second half the Convo defence coped admirably (you can’t blame anyone for the farce that was the goal), whilst in the first period everyone looked good going forward even if the finishing wasn’t always great. Richy Schofield’s hat trick is enough to earn him the MOTM accolade though.
Convocation (4-4-2); Round; Edwards, Willis, Schofield K, McLaren; Kearney, Fairclough, Igglesden, O’Brien R; Prince, Schofield R; Subs: Jones, Wheller, Dickson, Jelen
Bobby Mimms reports
In sending out his call-to-arms text Paul Dickson billed this encounter as ‘Midsummer Madness’, presumably referring to the previous day’s love-in at Stonehenge rather than because of some sudden penchant for quoting Shakespeare, but as it turned out referencing the bard’s Twelfth Night would have been quite apt seeing as games like this always drive the vanquished to the verge of insanity. It was a mismatch from the first whistle, an example of an irresistible force meeting a very movable object, and through a combination of the ridiculously incomparable teams, irresponsible tactics from the visitors, and good old-fashioned incompetence, to boot, Ramblers ran riot.
With hindsight the game should never have taken place – not just because it’s less than ten days until July, for God’s sake, but also because, having obviously struggled to get a team of relevant quality together, the hosts had just commandeered a fair few of the younger, more capable players from their upper echelons of ability. Nobody is saying that they can’t pick who they want from within their ranks, but you don’t expect a club such as Ramblers to put out a side with so obvious a starting advantage in a meaningless Corinthian friendly, thus making a mockery of the fixture. It is difficult to imagine anyone but the referee coming off the pitch at the end of this match with the opinion that it had been worth playing.
But you can only play what’s in front of you, and even if a more familiar Ramblers side had been sent out on Wednesday evening it’s highly likely that they would still have run amok, as Convocation were awful. Having presumably been presented with black spots en route, the visitors arrived at Moor Lane with their engines back-firing and proceeded to put in a performance that was mesmerising in all the wrong ways; they could have fielded a load of traffic cones and Dame Judy Dench to better effect. Too many players disappeared and were just not interested, a couple of the usual suspects moaned into oblivion what little spirit their colleagues hadn’t had beaten out of them by the opposition, while some of the performances that weren’t anonymous were of the brain-checked-in-before-kick-off variety.
They started with a central midfield pairing of Richy Schofield and Jon Kearney, and with instructions for the former to ‘wander’ – which was akin to telling him to breathe now and again – and the latter to man mark one of the opposition’s oldest players (Crutchley); even before the quality of the Ramblers team became all to evident, a blind man on a galloping horse could see that those tactics were footballing suicide. John Topping and Tim Jago began on the left and right wings, respectively, and Andy Willis and Joel Jelen were up front, but the club chairman and the erstwhile social secretary swapped positions almost as soon as the game got underway. The SAS, Justin Shanahan and Kevin Schofield, were at the heart of the defence, Andy McLaren and John Flamson were full backs (l and r in turn), the condemned Keith Purcell was in goal, and Dickson himself was the lone substitute.
Ramblers got things going facing into the sun and bedecked in their usual yellow and blue halves – Convo were in the blue Gardener’s kit – even though the goals looked so rickety you wondered whether they might collapse in a decent gust of wind, and the corner flags had yet to turn up. Eventually, after about five minutes, they did, and moments later one of the home side’s players picked up possession in a curiously spacious midfield and knocked a pass through the heart of the Convo defence for a colleague who was a good couple of yards offside. Ignoring the multiple appeals from his opponents, the man with the ball toe-poked a shot past Purcell from near the penalty spot… and so it began.
Not long after the restart a very similar build-up and an equally apparent offside move led to an identical outcome, which then resulted in a somewhat bizarre situation in which the referee (wearing a green early-nineties-style kit) had to be held back from squaring up to the elder Schofield, after the Convo man had called into question his impartiality in that way he does of implying it without ever quite actually saying as much. After thirty seconds or so the official backed down, but not before threatening to abandon the game if any further slurs were directed at him.
He proved there were no hard feelings when he correctly awarded a free kick to Convo midway through the half, despite Schofield going down inside his own penalty area (when in a spot of trouble) in a manner that made the dying swan look like the last bastion of eternal life. Ludicrously though, with the game still at 2-0, he only disallowed a Ramblers ‘goal’ for offside even though the scorer had kicked Purcell in the face – admittedly, accidentally – just before tapping the loose ball into the subsequently unguarded net.
As a result of an extremely well marshalled Ramblers back line the visitors could get nowhere near their hosts’ goal – well, with the exception of Willis’ numerous offside forays into their penalty area that were all called back – and perhaps it was frustration that started the inevitable moaning of the afore mentioned forward, with Richy Schofield harmonising beautifully (surprisingly, Kevin was quite quiet). Slowly but surely the hosts began to turn the rack on their guests and Convo heads didn’t so much drop as fall off guillotine style, allowing Ramblers to help themselves to another four goals before the interval – including, amongst others, a rocket of a shot that gave Purcell no chance and the customary lobbed effort.
Having been terrorised along the left flank by a youngster in a plain yellow shirt (no blue half) throughout the first period, McLaren called it a day during the interval and proceeded to watch the ensuing second-half debacle with his shirt wrapped around his head like a turban (when he folded his arms at one point, he was likened to Ali Baba); Dickson replaced him in a straight swap and was equally terrorised by the same alacritous player for the rest of the game. One of the main reasons that it was the Convo player at left back that seemed to being targeted by the home side – apart from the fact that the young fellow in direct opposition was one of their best players – was that there was no cover from the wing on that side of the pitch, as a result of the anonymity of both Topping and Jelen (ubiquity – that’s a laugh). Consequently, three more Ramblers goals were crafted out on that flank during the second half.
The first of which came less than two minutes after the restart, when a cross into the box was side-footed past Purcell by a forward battling it out with one of Convo’s less heralded defenders, Sweet Fanny Adams. By the time the home side netted again the unthinkable had happened and the visitors had actually pulled one back, but there was nothing astonishing about that Ramblers eighth seeing as it was a rerun of the seventh. Although there was little Dickson could have done to prevent either of the crosses for the goals, the Convocation defence as a whole was proving, once again, that it’s the footballing gift that just keeps on giving.
Having said that, the goal that had made it 7-1 actually started from the back, and was the visitors’ best move of the game – by a country parsec. Purcell gained possession inside his penalty area and rolled the ball out to Schofield (K) on the edge, who in turn passed it out to Flamson on his right. The former chairman then played it forward up the line to Jago and the Scotsman travelled with it for about fifteen yards before crossit it’s the footballing gift that just keeps on giving.
Having said that, the goal that had made it 7-1 actually started from the back, and was the visitors’ best move of the game – by a country parsec. Purcell gained possession inside his penalty area and rolled the ball out to Schofield (K) on the edge, who in turn passed it out to Flamson on his right. The former chairman then played it forward up the line to Jago and the Scotsman travelled with it for about fifteen yards before crossing an inch-perfect ball into the Ramblers six-yard box that Richy Schofield only had to redirect into the back of the net.
JLA’s finest should have had a second not long after that when he found himself in space in the Ramblers area, but luck was clearly on the side of the home side’s ‘keeper as, not only did his opponent’s shot strike the left-hand upright and rebound to safety, but the goal didn’t then come crashing down on top of him.
Liking the idea of goalkeepers fearing for their lives, Ramblers then smashed a shot against the Convo crossbar making it vibrate like a ruler on the edge of a desk, whilst the ball subsequently ricocheted into the heavens and entered orbit around the Earth. But Purcell had no such lucky escape several minutes later when Richy Schofield conceded a free kick about five yards outside of the D of his own penalty area. Obviously disconcerted with proceeding by then, the #1 lined up a two-man wall that can only have blocked off ten percent of the target, if that, and the player standing over the ball simply arrowed it into the top right-hand corner as the ‘keeper made a pathetic attempt at a dive to keep it out.
McLaren went all fifth columnist and came on at right back for Ramblers, but there was a double celebration for Willis shortly after the restart when he managed to stop moaning for more than a couple of seconds and finally broke the offside trap, however his pitiful shot was straight at the Ramblers #1 and hardly worth the effort. He kept on plugging away though and finally got the ball into the back of the net for what he later bashfully described as “a great goal”; unfortunately, whilst the referee might have agreed with him on that note, there was no concurrence on whether or not the Convo man had stayed onside – no goal.
While Willis went off to look for a gas oven to shove his head into Ramblers started getting fruity in their opponents’ half with all sorts of back heels and fancy-dan flicks, and then a second lobbed goal of the game, from twenty-five yards out – for some reason Shanahan was quite aggrieved by this particular concession, even though it was possibly the only one that no one could really be blamed for. Annoyed in turn by his defender’s mini-tantrum, Purcell reacted incredibly half-heartedly (i.e. sulkily) to a Jago back pass, a minute or two after the restart, and one of the opposition forwards blocked his attempted clearance before dinking the loose ball over a desperate dive at his feet by the ‘keeper, from the corner of the six-yard box.
Willis finally got the goal he probably deserved, when he headed back into the corner of the Ramblers net from a right-wing cross, but the home side had the final word with a twelfth when one of their players dosey-doed around the crowded Convo penalty area with the ball for about a minute, before knocking it past the sprawled Purcell (he had dummied a shot seconds earlier) at his right-hand post. The referee blew for full time almost immediately – and that black dog was waiting by the changing rooms again.
Nothing should be read into the result as the game was, to all intents and purposes, a farce: the majority of the Ramblers players were just too good for their opponents, and due to their ages it’s unlikely that any of the Convo crew will ever have to face them again.
However, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the visitors brought precious little to the party, and even though they obviously did give quite a few years to their hosts, for the first time they’re starting to look like an old team. It could be down to the fact that they’ve played on a weekly basis for almost ten months now, but with the exception of Kearney this was a line-up that wouldn’t have looked out of place ten years ago, and several players have been with club for much longer.
Could it be that we’re looking at the beginning of the end of an era? Well, if the light is dying for this team and some of its players then there was certainly little evidence of any raging against it, during this midsummer murder.
Man Of The Match: Withheld. Everyone was either anonymous or extremely poor, and even scoring a goal doesn’t absolve a player for a game’s worth of constant carping at his team mates.
Convocation (4-4-2): Purcell; McLaren, Shanahan, Schofield K, Flamson; Jelen, Kearney, Schofield R, Jago; Willis, Topping; Sub: Dickson
Bobby Mimms reports
Time: part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence and, according to the author C.J. Overbeck, “…what keeps everything from happening at once”. But due to the arbitrary nature of its measurement it is often difficult to decide when things start and finish; whether this game was an understandably tired performance after a long campaign, or an irrelevant pre-pre-season friendly in which the result didn’t matter. It had the feel of an end-of-term fixture, and as it came only seventy-odd hours after the club’s last match – a game played in amongst the cannibals of Slovakia, no less – there is a strong argument for it being the former. However, surely the AGM of ten days ago brought an end to the previous footballing year and therefore everything since should be classed as 2011-12, or 1AF (After Flamo).
Whatever the case, on Wednesday Convo were shit.
Only four of the twelve that made the short journey to Crosby (or five of the thirteen if you count your non-playing correspondent) had been in Košice over the weekend, so fatigue shouldn’t really have been a problem – and it’s not likely that any of the buggers had done anything too laborious in work throughout the day – yet despite Ramblers playing the first fifteen minutes with only ten men the visitors never got close to their hosts’ goal, and, in fact, it took them until a quarter of an hour before the interval to fire off any kind of shot in anger. Theirs was a flaccid performance that made a mockery of playing the game in the first place, as football was never meant to be played on balmy evenings in June, regardless of what Joel Jelen thinks.
By the time the home side’s eleventh man turned up they’d had a trio of chances to take the lead, and had even had the ball in the Convocation net, only to have their embryonic celebrations thwarted by the referee blowing for offside. There were players still to touch the thing when the visiting ‘keeper Ian Mitchell mis-punched it inches over his crossbar at a long Ramblers throw-in, and twice his goal came under bombardment from mid-range shots in the following few minutes, although on both occasions his luck was in as they passed just the non-scoring side of his uprights; a banshee-esque wail of “Jesus Tonight” was heard not long after the second of them.
The Convo back line was being pulled all over the place by that ‘movement and speedy passing’ thing that they don’t cope terribly well with, but in fairness to them the real problem lay elsewhere. John Flamson and Paul Dickson had started in the left and right full-back berths respectively, but it was the two men in between, Dave Hoban and Kevin Schofield, who were the ones being really tormented by the Ramblers strikers (hence the taking of the Lord’s name in vain), as it was through the middle that they kept looking to attack.
Yet even the blasphemous thundercloud that is Schofield had to give up the grump after one particular Ramblers attempt on goal, when Dickson trotted into the tennis courts behind Mitchell’s nets to retrieve the ball, only to run full-whack into a near-invisible railing on his return and almost knock himself out – the ensuing goal-kick was held up for sixty seconds while the ‘keeper tried to compose himself.
Midway through the half though, the home side finally broke the deadlock, and just as with all of the earlier pressure Convo’s undoing stemmed from their midfield – or rather, its absence. Though they hardly set the game alight, Simon O’Brien (l) and Jon Kearney (r) manned the flanks and put in competent enough shifts, but the same couldn’t be said for the usually reliable pairing of Jelen and Paul Fairclough. Both had been far-too-easily out-muscled by their counterparts (although Jelen had been told off in the first few minutes for catching an opponent with an elbow as he himself was being fouled) and had flitted in and out of the game almost to the point of being anonymous; as a result the Ramblers midfield were dictating proceedings, and safe in the knowledge that they had time to consider their options they could pick passes out at will, with one such defence-splitting through-ball setting up a one-on-one that ended in Mitchell being beaten.
It didn’t help Convo’s cause that whenever they did manage to venture any reasonable distance into their hosts’ half they lost possession, almost always by being caught offside. Richy O’Brien and Andy Willis had started the game leading the visitors’ line, and the latter had clearly brought the same illogical approach to the offside law that he usually applies when playing in defence, up front with him. But that said, just as the evening’s sunshine was being smothered by an increasing bank of cloud, the two O’Briens combined to create the Wyncote side’s first chance of the game when Simon broke down the inside left channel and squared the ball to his brother, who fired a foot-or-two over the crossbar on the gallop.
It was a rare chance for Convo to test their shooting boots, but almost immediately they were back on the retreat. Dickson went off for a breather, with Chris McNally replacing him in a like-for-like swap at right back, and when Schofield headed behind for a corner the new club secretary saw his first action in the resultant stramash. The deep delivery eluded most of the squirming goalmouth occupants, but even though the halved shirt at the back post headed the ball down into the ground Mitchell still had to call upon all six-foot-whatever of his frame to pluck the ball from under his crossbar at stretch, when it threatened to bounce up over him.
The home side were causing no end of bother for their opponents’ defence, with a succession of long throw-ins and a hyperactivity that would put sugar-rushing eight-year olds to shame – but Convo seemed to be just about coping. That is, until the gods of high farce took an interest in what was going on. Jelen went to intercept a throw-in not far inside the Ramblers half, but when he accidentally stood on the ball as he went to win it – a number of other players did the same during the game – it was lumped down the pitch more in hope than anything, as both Hoban and McNally were in place to deal with it. However, possibly impressed with their team mate’s slapstick, moments earlier, they both went all Norman Wisdom and the former fired off a total air-kick at the ball while the latter tripped over his own feet as he moved across to make amends. Fortunately, the Ramblers player who took advantage of their double act couldn’t see through his tears of laughter, and fired wide of the target despite somehow finding himself one-on-one with Mitchell.
It didn’t matter though, because Flamson fancied a piece of the pie as well, so when Schofield received the subsequent goal kick on the edge of the penalty area and passed it on to the former chairman, he played the ball straight to the feet of one of the Ramblers forwards, who then ran on and slotted it into the bottom left-hand corner of the Convo goal. It was identical to the concession he'd set up in Košice over the weekend.
Not everyone appreciates the aesthetics of buffoonery though, and from the other end of the pitch Willis – calming influence that he is – went postal; despite the fact that his inability to stay onside had pretty much single-handedly wrecked just about every attack that Convo had had in the first period, you could sort of see his point. They had withstood almost everything that the home side had thrown at them and were moments away from being able to regroup, only a goal in arrears, and then the Goons had shown up. Still, with his track record you’d have thought he’d have been more inclined to adopt the ‘there but for the grace of God’ approach.
A great last-ditch tackle on his own six-yard line went some way towards Hoban atoning for his sins, sixty seconds before the interval, and as a bonus, in the time that was left, he was also instrumental in Convocation’s best move of the match. Schofield played the ball to him from the penalty area and he in turn passed it out wide to Flamson, who knocked it up the line to the elder O’Brien. With the muddle in the middle still ongoing the winger must have been grateful that the two defenders had taken it upon themselves to fill the vacuum in central midfield by charging forward, and via Hoban the ball found its way back to the red-shirted Flamson, whose looping shot was only just kept out underneath the crossbar by the… red-shirted Ramblers ‘keeper. Half time followed almost immediately.
Dickson returned for the start of the second period in place of Fairclough, giving the Wigan man the chance to ring his loved ones and let them know that he was alive (Flamson moved into midfield). It was a beginning described, not unfairly, as “lazy and slow”, but within a couple of minutes McNally went close to connecting with a Kearney free kick and pulling a goal back, although as the ball into the area had been at head height the Mancunian was understandably disadvantaged.
Twice the home side tried to dink shots over Mitchell in response, the second of which from a rather cheeky twenty-odd yards out, but even after only five minutes of the second half Convo looked a lot more assured than they had during the whole of the first. The captain led by example, the Slovakian air obviously having worked wonders for his mojo, and the Ramblers right-sided players must have done double takes and wondered what kind of toe-bonging leviathan they were up against.
That said, Mitchell was selling nobody short on their entrance money, and he did well to push a twenty-yard curler around his left-hand post without realising that the referee had already deemed the effort offside, and then, more pertinently, saved at a one-on-one with his legs after Schofield had succumbed to defensive solidarity and fluffed the easiest of lines on the edge of the Convo penalty area. But though the goalkeeper had to deflect another palm-stinger out for a corner ten minutes after that, the visitors undoubtedly enjoyed their best period of the game in the quarter of an hour after the interval.
Pushing Flamson forward had killed two birds with one stone, as not only did it get him the fuck away from his own goal but it also helped man the Marie Celeste of the midfield, so to speak, waking Jelen up in the process – he would curl a shot just wide of the Ramblers left-hand post, having been played in by McNally, as a show of gratitude. The veteran also set up Richy O’Brien for a scooped effort that took a deflection onto the same upright, and from the resultant Simon O’Brien corner the club secretary powered a chance straight at the opposition ‘keeper with that big ol’ sheriff’s badge of a head of his.
When Willis put a curler just wide of the home side’s right-hand post with twenty minutes remaining it started to look more a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ Convocation would score. But just before Fairclough returned in place of Agent Flamson the Ramblers right winger outpaced Hoban down the visitors’ left and squared the ball to an unmarked colleague, who just beat Mitchell to the loose ball and then tapped it into the empty net from about twelve yards out.
Convo pretty much gave up the pretence of defence after that and, having been played in by Willis, a wandering Schofield tried his luck from twenty yards out. The blast ricocheted off a defender back to Willis again, who also gave it his best shot, but his effort failed with flying colours, flew across the face of the target and went out over the squiggles that passed as goal lines for a Ramblers kick.
Any hopes that Convo still had were taken around the back of the Ramblers clubhouse and shot with a bolt gun with a little over five minutes remaining, when the home side won possession in the centre circle, breezed past their guests’ high line and fired another shot past Mitchell from the one-on-one.
McNally survived a quite obvious hand ball call just after the restart, but both his and his team’s reprieve was short lived as yet another one-on-one ensued moments later. The ‘keeper made himself big and did well to force the man on the ball wide, having taken seventy-six minutes to perfect the trick, but the law of Sod was at play and in trying to pick out a team mate on the far side of the area the Ramblers player’s cross caused McNally to turn the ball into his own net.
That was the final straw as far as Schofield was concerned and, as he’s done many times before, he flounced off in a huff, with Flamson returning for the final couple of minutes in his place. There was still time for yet another one-on-one with Mitchell, although he blocked that shot with his foot, and in the dying moments another Ramblers attack ended with a chance being whacked across the face of the goal as the sun, somewhat ironically, came back out from behind the clouds to brighten the evening.
All this game illuminated though, was Convo’s need for a break. It’s been a long, hard season (even if it’s only eighty minutes old) and even those who haven’t just returned from a cross-continental jaunt of debauchery are tired and in need of their batteries recharging. The Wyncote side will always be able to call up a hardcore of players, possibly with something missing in their lives, for whom football is the be-all-and-end-all. But for most people fixture list-addendums are unwelcome once the month of roses comes around, especially when the fixtures themselves are so stale.
Of course, another reason why this game shouldn't have been played is that, as Flamson pointed out once it was over : “Convocation never do well after Europe”.
Man Of The Match: Mitchell had his moments, but otherwise did everything you could have asked of him, while if nothing else Kearney could boast that he never descended the depths of ineptitude that a lot of his colleagues did. However, it might have been joked beforehand that Dickson had lost the dressing room, but the bit of sparkle that he’d found in its place was enough to earn him the MOTM award.
Convocation (4-4-2): Mitchell; Flamson, Hoban, Schofield K, Dickson; O’Brien S, Jelen, Fairclough, Kearney; Willis, O’Brien R; Sub: McNally
