Bobby Mimms does a quick one
Good God, this was a grim end to the Firsts’ season; a game that, fittingly enough this weekend, only a mother could have loved. It was the sort of encounter that alcohol was invented for – just call your correspondent clairvoyant – eighty-odd minutes of utter dross punctuated very occasionally by a glimmer of goalmouth excitement (to use the word in its loosest sense), or bellicose posturing and verbal intimidation (at least the visitors were attempting to liven things up). There have been times as the campaign’s finale has neared that Convocation’s league side have played like they were coasting, barely bothering with first gear never mind second, but on Saturday this anti-football was more akin to an emergency stop. The fare was so dull that it even seemed to get to the referee, who was being paid to be there remember, and he blew up early in both halves.
Such self-absorbed shenanigans shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone as it was none other than Convo’s (and, in particular, Graham Roberts’) old friend Antonio Perez, and the fact that the demand of hogging the spotlight couldn’t be maintained for a full ninety minutes even by him does say what needs to be said about the quality of the match. He may only be young, but from what the Wyncote side have seen of him this season the whistler definitely seems to admire the no-nonsense (and nonsense) style of the great Jeff Winter, and at first it must have struck him that the lack of action in the game was a great chance for him to try and liven up proceedings.
The rather warm, early spring conditions seemed to have made everyone a little tetchy (even usually-mild-mannered Jerome Galy got involved in a pushing-and-shoving spat with Simon Crockett on the sideline towards the end of the match), but the Waterloo rabble in particular had decided that they were going to play as an ersatz version of Uruguay 1986, launching into numerous naughty/nasty challenges on opponents throughout the duration. As was his wont Mr Perez turned a blind eye to the potential dangers of such actions, going no further than awarding free kicks when (for once) a flash-or-two of yellow might have calmed things down, but when Taha Abussnena took umbrage with one such potential crippler in the final few minutes of the first half and he and the perpetrator subsequently spat curses at each other (seriously, it couldn’t even be called ‘handbags’) the official sent them both off. And in his hurry to administer what he perceived to be justice he forgot to blow his whistle, so the game continued for a while around him while he did his thing.
The Convo ‘miscreant’ had been positioned on the left side of an advanced midfield trio, with Galy on the right and Adel Ahmed in between, while Mike Nawrocki and Andy Welsh formed a defensive pairing in front of the back line, and Mike Kent played as the lone forward. The foursome in the rearguard comprised of Liam Byatt and Ewan MacDonald flanking Jay Railton and Jon Welsh, the mysterious ‘Eder’ [Hidar Hendal] made a second appearance between the sticks, and the three substitutes who took no part in the first period were Kieran O’Sullivan, the aforementioned ex-red-cardee Roberts, and Captain Chris “what’s a [word beginning with ‘n’ and rhyming with ‘bonce’ – we doesn’t want to be attracting any unsavoury traffic to the website]?” McNally. With the dismissal of Abussnena the home side reverted to a 4-4-1 outfield configuration.
Now temperance is not a lifestyle that everyone can pull off so it is possible that there was more excitement to the game than your correspondent remembers, but what is undeniable is that there were just the two shots on target throughout the entire dreary affair. During the first half ‘Eder’ made a good low save to his right to stop a rasping effort from the edge of the penalty area, but when the visitors managed to align their crosshairs correctly again inside the final ten minutes there was little that the (apparently) American-Iranian ‘keeper could do. One of the Waterloo mob attacked down his left flank (on the old tennis court pitch), keeping the ball in play by a fraction of an inch right in front of the Convo bench before dribbling into the home side’s box, pulling the thing back for a colleague from near the byline, and his tap-in from eight yards out secured the ordeal’s only goal.
Railton went the closest to scoring for Convocation, firing a shot just over the opposition crossbar midway through the second half before trotting back down the pitch and almost turning the ball into his own net thirty seconds later (he was trying to cut out a cross into the box and conceded a corner with about a foot to spare). Otherwise the home side were extremely lacklustre and toothless, with occasional mid-range efforts drifting off target, and no one resorting to walking football, being the best that can be attributed to them. Perhaps young pup Zico (who’d arrived when Paul Owen-Browne turned up to watch) might have brought some enthusiasm to their cause had he been let loose on the field.
After Waterloo’s goal everyone pretty much downed tools (even though most had never really picked them up in the first place) and just about went through the motions of what was left of this crappy hand that fate had dealt them, while it was all that your correspondent could do to resist going off and looking for a wall to paint just so that it could then be watched drying. Eventually all concerned made it to the (mercifully premature, although not premature enough) final whistle, and for Convo, thanks to having been able to play numerous games on Wyncote’s 3G pitch over the winter when they would otherwise have been postponed, their season was over before British Summer Time had even come in.
It would be a little unfair to suggest that they phoned this result in, but for most of the game they were certainly rummaging for change with the pips going – one for the youngsters there – although at least they didn’t suffer the ignominy of their brethren, the Seconds, who on the next pitch at the same time got massacred 13-1 by Ramblers, of all teams. The Firsts have also been spared the worst of the civil war that raged in the Corinthian arm of the club earlier in the season, but nonetheless, through a combination of (not always fair) disciplinary problems, an unfortunate administrative error costing them an unexpected chance of a cup run, and (mainly) the sheer erraticism that has seen them outplay (and sometimes batter) teams one week and lose to them the next, perhaps this has been a campaign that is best consigned to the bin of history.
Man Of The Match: Good God, will this report never end? Railton did a couple of memorable things – two more than everybody else in dull grey – but ‘Eder’ looked a reassuring presence at the back throughout, made a pretty good save in the first half, and couldn’t be faulted for the goal. It may be a tallest dwarf achievement, but he was Convo’s best player by some distance.
Convocation (4-2-3-1): Hendal; Byatt, Railton, Welsh J, MacDonald; Nawrocki, Welsh A; Abussnena, Ahmed, Galy; Kent; Subs: O’Sullivan, Roberts G, McNally
[Editor’s Note: There was at least one further First Team fixture after the Waterloo game, a friendly against St Margaret’s at the start of May, but due to the Dear Leader Kim Jong-McNally refusing to co-operate with the website not even the scorer is known outside of his secretive regime.]
1' Andy Welsh
13' Breno (with a dirty back heel!)
20' Taha
35' Taha
50' Craig
60' Craig (with an audacious dink!)
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; MacDonald, Railton, Welsh J, Byatt; Abussnena, Welsh A, O'Sullivan, Ahmed, Kent; Salgado; Subs: Kaye, De Buffalo, Galy, Prendergast, McNally
Craig from the penalty spot.
Convocation (4-5-1): Round; Byatt, Railton, Welsh J, Farrell; Galy, Welsh, Roberts G, Salgado, Kaye; Lewis; Subs: Abussnena, McNally, MacDonald (unused)
Bobby Mimms reports
“Oh well, I suppose it saves us getting kicked out…”
The Captain’s words trailed away and he never finished his sentence, but it was clear what he’d intended to say. The full time whistle had just been blown on this cup tie and the visitors to Wyncote, Business School, were also the victors, albeit only because they’d been well and truly aided and abetted by the Convocation defence. The team from Speke might not have been ‘one of those opponents we put ten past earlier in the season’ as one unsure spectator had enquired before kick-off, but with Convo having still beaten them in the league quite comfortably, home and away, being drawn against them in the last eight of the Bushell Cup had looked like the best chance of progressing when the fixtures came out at the end of January and their first steps in all three of the knockout competitions were in consecutive weeks.
But then, last time out, they went and beat Division Three Wavertree in the Emrys Hughes Trophy, and for a while it looked as though anything else would be a bonus. That was until it was pointed out to them several days ago that they’d fielded three ineligible players in the win (they’d also got away with using six substitutes) and as a result would forfeit the tie; that put all the importance back on making sure of a good result against Business School, and obviously defeat wasn’t in that brochure. So it was the somewhat unorthodox double whammy of competition exits that Chris McNally hinted at dryly at the final whistle (‘it saves getting kicked out… for another administrative error’), and it means that with the third of their cup starts being against First Division Roby College next week Convo’s season is in danger of fizzling out, in antithesis to all of Storm Doris’ best efforts.
They’ve really only got themselves to blame for losing this one, because they were easily the better of the two teams but (almost literally) gifted the visitors two of their three goals and just stopped defending to allow them to score the other. At the other end of the 3G pitch Business School had a decidedly ropey ‘keeper who seemed incapable of using his hands (he did make a number of good blocks with his feet, mind) and in the second period in particular were there for the taking – seldom can a team have looked so crippled with fear – but Convo just couldn’t break them down. At half time McNally accused his charges of being “stupidly quiet” – which wasn’t always the case as, yet again, there was too much pointing out others’ faults – but the main reason that they lost was because they couldn’t get the ball in their opponents’ net.
Despite it being Karneval weekend in Cologne no one from the Firsts had made the trip, so once again they had a full complement of players and substitutes at their disposal (just the sixteen this week), although starting left back Ewan MacDonald only lasted a short while before having to call it a day due to some sort of ailment of the leg. He was replaced by Jay Railton, who from then on partnered Liam Byatt in the heart of the defence, while Sam Prendergast slipped across to fill the hole left by the Scot and secretary-in-shame John Farrell was at right back. Jerome Galy and Divine De Buffalo manned the flanks of the midfield, left and right respectively, with Jon Welsh, Anthony Lewis and Adel Ahmed in between (the latter having progressed from his recent wearing of a protective face mask to just a small plaster on his nose – the equivalent of transforming from the Phantom of Opera to Robbie Fowler?), and up front on his own was newly-established team crosspatch Taha Abussnena.
It might be difficult to say that the opening goal was against the run of play, but up until the ball hit the back of the net the visitors (who scored it) had pretty much sat back and let their opponents do most of the hard work; an assist for the notch, therefore, has to go to Convo for defending as though they were trying to carry a 12x6 pane of glass across the edge of their own penalty area. Lewis levelled the scores not long after that, but even then when the home side were at their most potent there were worrying signs that they were more of a risk to themselves than their opponents.
There seemed little danger of anyone getting into trouble with the referee, Mr Ian Foxcroft, though, as for the majority of the opening forty-five minutes he seemed so reluctant to penalise anything that you had to wonder whether he had accidentally left his whistle back in his changing room. His seeming indifference climaxed midway through the half when one of the Business School players suffered a touch of the Dick Fosburys in the centre circle and hurled himself to the ground in the most ridiculous manner as (he assumed) an opponent neared; the official let play continue without intervening as he presumably considered the shame of having been caught out executing such a blatant dive would be more of a punishment than any lecture or card he could administer.
Convocation continued to make the running but their guests seldom looked particularly vulnerable and were keeping it reasonably tight at the back in what was a vast improvement on when the two sides had last met, a few weeks ago. Back then Business School had received a bit of a thumping on a pitch in deepest darkest L24 that had been as easy for the boys from Wyncote to find as Brigadoon, but as the half-hour mark of this encounter neared Farrell and his live-and-let-live approach to defending had no such problems locating the opposition when, just outside his own penalty area, he simply passed the ball to a nearby red-and-black striped shirt and the recipient knocked it on before belting a shot beyond Riley from about fifteen yards out (somebody on the sideline suggested that the ‘keeper should have done better to save the effort, but that was probably a bit harsh). Following hot on the heels of his administrative gaffe the goal caused the club secretary to suggest after the match that this had been his “worst week for Convo”, which just reminded you that, in club terms, he hasn’t lived (and that gin was invented for a reason).
If that concession had given those connected with the home side the first tingles that all was not well on the ‘progression to the semi-final’ front, then several minutes before the interval the sensation surely magnified into an all-out stinging one. The Business School glover hoofed a huge kick downfield from out of his hands – it seemed to be the only footballing act he was any good at – but with numerous grey-shirted bodies putting more effort into pushing opponents in the back (something the referee deemed acceptable) than heading it clear the ball was allowed to bounce well inside their own half and a second visitor ran on after it, just about rounded Riley despite the ‘keeper risking a red card (hmmm…?) by attempting to bring him down, and then rolled the thing into the gaping goalmouth.
Farrell, Galy and Prendergast were all hooked at half time, with Mike Nawrocki, Breno Salgado and McNally going on in their stead (but not necessarily their place) as Convo switched to a 3-5-2 formation with wing backs – oh my! Welsh dropped in alongside Railton and Byatt to make up the three-man defence and the change did actually seem to work as for the remainder of the game the home side were conspicuous by not gifting stupid opportunities to their opponents, although there was one scary moment midway through the period when a red-and-black shirted player slipped through their rearguard and from the right of the target (as he would have seen it) fired a shot into the side netting that actually went through it and into the back of the goal – where’ve we seen something like that before? Fortunately for Convocation the referee wasn’t fooled by the shoddy workmanship of whoever had rigged the thing up.
The man in black had apparently found his whistle during the interval and in a perfect example of ‘be careful what you wish for’ had started interrupting play with an annoying regularity, but when De Buffalo knocked a low pass into the visitors’ box as the hour mark loomed and the chasing Salgado was scythed down by a foul that could be seen coming so far in advance it was actually recorded at the end of the Bayeux Tapestry, the official had little choice but to point (with a gloved finger) to the spot. Interestingly, some of the Business School johnnies started making up their own rules at that point, ‘suggesting’ that it couldn’t be a penalty as the Brazilian – who shouldn’t actually have been playing as he was still banned from having been dismissed against ACOL several weeks ago – had managed to get a shot off, but nonetheless Ahmed made no mistake from twelve yards, Panenka-ing the ball down the middle and scoring even though the portly ‘keeper didn’t move (?).
Inevitably Convo went for their guests’ jugular after that, pushing up further and further and in greater numbers looking for an equaliser, which had the added bonus of there being fewer clowns around at the back to threaten their own goal. Their comeback quest was trumpeted on from the sideline by Vice-captain Simon Crockett’s arse, his machine-gun-fire farting almost dictating the tempo while (perhaps) simultaneously attracting a Hitchcockian swarm of circling seagulls that must have mistaken its salvo for a trawler’s engine. There was one man who looked less than impressed with the new high octane set-up though, as accidental wing-back De Buffalo’s attempts at tracking back were in very little danger of causing a sonic boom and were described by one spectator as “almost Dicko-esque”.
Unfortunately, the remainder of the match also saw a continuation of the Firsts’ recent disciplinary problems and both Abussnena and Byatt received yellow cards before its end. The defender’s was the second of the two and at least excusable: a long Business School ball over the top of the home side’s back line looked like it might send one of their forwards through on goal until the Convo man dragged him back by the arm, although the subsequent booking was actually a bit of a cop out by the referee as he should either have flashed a straight red (for last man) or nothing.
Abussnena’s indiscretions were less defensible. He’d been on the receiving end of regular, niggly (yet hardly illegal) challenges all game, so when he went down in the penalty area and his toppler took umbrage with the fall something of a coming together ensued. Grey-shirted players attempted to calm their colleague down, but the trouble-making opposition ‘keeper could smell blood and gave the pot a good stir to try and provoke a reaction, and with the forward unwilling to stop mouthing off at anyone and everyone the referee finally lost patience and gave himself a bit more paperwork to do by issuing the Convo man with a yellow card for dissent.
Clearly overtired, the miscreant was substituted not long after that, a move that seemed rather sensible considering he had an air about him of someone preparing to be sent off, although his withdrawal was actually because he had to go to work; Craig Kaye replaced him, but he too had a bit of a bee in his bonnet, albeit one that had originated from the tales he’d been telling while still on the sideline of his curious hatred for that enemy of the people, Philip Schofield. Within minutes of the swap the referee risked becoming equally detested when he refused to award Convo another penalty after Salgado was again upended inside the Business School area, and while you could argue that you’ve seen ‘em given when an official’s been in a bad mood, from your correspondent’s vantage point there did seem to be something a little contrived about the Brazilian’s tumble.
Nonetheless, the visitors were definitely showing signs of The Fear whenever anyone in grey neared their eighteen-yard box, but to their credit – although few if any of the Convocation players would probably use that word – their collective performance throughout the second half was straight off the pages of the superior time-waster’s textbook. They still needed a late reprieve though, when Byatt, possibly distracted by the Fat Lady clearing her throat, headed a great chance over their crossbar at a corner despite nobody in stripes putting any pressure him. After that McNally managed to accidentally stumble into some sort of rugby tackle on an opponent, during which he got kneed in the face and his nose exploded (requiring Galy to return for a couple of seconds), but otherwise Business School had done enough to collapse over the finishing line and pull off a quite impressive smash and grab.
So the million dollar question is did Convocation take progression against seemingly limited opponents for granted? It’s more likely that the players were guilty of the lesser charge of being too confident that they could outscore their guests, and if so that’s a very dangerous tactic to employ considering that they are the club that never stops giving; you can’t plan for individual mistakes – there isn’t enough time in the week for that much training – so if a string come along in one match then you have to rely on the goal getters to bail the team out, and that’s not always a given even if the form book suggests it will be.
There was no waiting mob for the players to worry about after the match, and Farrell has received the Chairman’s vote of confidence – uh, oh – but even so with only two league games remaining and Convo being safely ensconced in mid-table the season is, yet again, fizzling out (it almost makes you long for a good old relegation scrap), so for interest’s sake’s they could really do with upsetting the applecart next week and getting a result against Roby. Yeah, right – they’re more than capable of doing something else stupid, like running up a six-nil lead but then having half the team sent off in the last minute.
Man Of The Match: Maybe whoever it was supposed to be went to Karneval – the defence cost the team dearly, while everyone else was extremely average to the point that the only ones to stand out were the scorers. Of those two, Ahmed gets the nod only because his Panenka penalty was so cheeky (and it’s still a mystery how he scored it past a ‘keeper that didn’t move…?).
Convocation (4-5-1): Riley; MacDonald, Byatt, Prendergast, Farrell; Galy, Welsh J, Ahmed, Lewis, De Buffalo; Abussnena; Subs: Railton, McNally, Nawrocki, Salgado, Kaye
Convocation (4-5-1): Round; Byatt, Welsh J, Railton, Parsons; Abussnena, Lewis, Welsh A, Ahmed, Kaye; McNally; Subs: Roberts G, Salgado, Galy, MacDonald, De Buffalo, 'Eder'
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; Galy, Prendergast, Byatt, Parsons; Kaye, Abussnena, O'Sullivan, Ahmed, Majer; McNally; Subs: Welsh J, Kent
Breno was sent off for an altercation with some idiot on theirs. Jay scored from a Craig corner.
Convocation (4-5-1): Welsh J; Byatt, Prendergast, Railton, Farrell; Abussnena, Parsons, Ahmed, Kent, Galy; Kaye; Subs: Salgado, MacDonald, McNally, Chivers
Bobby Mimms reports
Get out the finest china, put on your best suit, cos King Karma’s come a-calling, and you can’t pretend that you’re not in. Ever since the reciprocal fixture back in September ended with Quarry Bank being denied a late equaliser because the referee failed to notice the ball fly through an unofficial hole in their opponents’ net there’s been a suspicion that this return encounter would have something of the banana skin about it for Convocation, and so it was that their neighbours turned up at Wyncote on Saturday with revenge undoubtedly in mind – they are definitely the type – and did indeed send them skidding off down the road to defeat on their arses. In theory this was a mid-table clash between one side who have been the very definition of inconsistent since the start of the season, and their hosts who were on a bit of a losing run (including a six-nil defeat to St Margaret’s last week), but while the hope was that the latest episode of the Mather Avenue derby might lead to the defenestration of the form book, as such matches are said to do, it was ultimately as predictably uninspiring as the fifth and sixth placed positions in the table suggested it would be.
Even if the opposition hadn’t been the unimaginative but vindictive Quarry Bank though, Convo would still probably have struggled to take anything from the clash as they were poor throughout. They had most of the possession and created the lion’s share of the game’s attempts on goal, but few were from inside their opponents’ penalty area and fewer still looked even remotely dangerous, while for all they had the ball theirs was a TCP-sterile domination. For most of the ninety minutes the visiting #1 could have gotten away with sprawling out in a deckchair with his feet up, but in what became an increasingly bad-tempered affair a different example of ‘feet up’ resulted in Convocation finishing with only ten men, a straight red card putting the top hat on a collective performance to forget.
That said, it didn’t look as though things would turn out so unsatisfactorily during the opening quarter of an hour as the home side were easily on top, and with the tempo of their game they forced Quarry Bank onto the back foot almost constantly. Out on the right flank Andy Parsons was finding plenty of space and thus seeing plenty of the ball, and through a succession of early corners he created several goalmouth chances for his team mates that they couldn’t capitalise on due in no small part to the excellent handling of the opposition ‘keeper.
Everything changed just after the mid-point of the half though, when the visitors went and took the lead through their first decent chance of the game. One of their players picked up possession near the centre circle and percolated through the heart of the home side’s resistance far too easily before playing a pass out to a colleague on the right. Crucially, Convo right back Mike Kent, already hopelessly out of position, followed the ball across the pitch, so when the new recipient put a deep cross towards the furthest post almost from on the byline there was no one to stop another yellow shirt from running in and powering a header goalward. Jon Welsh certainly tried to block the effort, but to add insult to the injury of his team mate’s poor marking he only succeeded in deflecting it up and past Alex Hendry from inside the six-yard box when it looked as if the ‘keeper might well have had the initial attempt covered.
Not long after that the home side could have been punished again for losing the ball in midfield when a subsequent Quarry Bank shot from the edge of the penalty area was only kept out of the top right-hand corner by a fine Hendry save, although the aesthetics of the ‘keeper’s actions were in marked contrast to the bizarre Sherwood-green felt/corduroy trackie bottoms he was presumably being forced to wear; the watching Tim Jago suggested that he may have been auditioning for Doctor Finlay’s Casebook. That respite counted for nothing though, when just after the half-hour mark the visitors did indeed double their lead through an attack along their inside-left channel, a low cross through their opponents’ six-yard box from near the byline, and an unmarked tap-in at the back post.
Convo’s plight could have gotten even worse within sixty seconds of them kicking off again when Quarry Bank resorted to route one, launching a long ball up the pitch from deep inside their own half that completely bypassed the leaden, grey-shirted ranks facing them, and from just outside the eighteen-yard box one of their forwards managed to get on the end of the punt and flick a header goalward, but also straight at Hendry. The home side had been lucky because had the effort missed the ‘keeper it would surely have found the back of the net once more; they’d also gone to pot, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed on the sideline where their bench’s exasperation at what they were watching formulated itself into one collective enquiry: “What the fuck’s going on?”
Of course, it almost goes without saying that the visitors were a disagreeable lot, and there’s an argument to be made that their pugnacity got to the hosts, stymieing their game and contributing towards the deficit. The left flank of the Quarry Bank line-up in particular seemed to be a hotbed of twattery, and an almighty barney broke out during the first half between a couple of its mouthpieces and those on the nearby Convocation sideline after Parsons, on the front foot, carried the ball extremely close to the corner flag and Sam Prendergast (correctly) didn’t raise the flag he was in charge of. The substitute, along with Vice-captain Simon Crockett, immediately became the brunt of yellow-shirted vitriol for having the cheek to wave away their protests in good humour (“what are you laughing at, this is a serious game”), while their full back – an arsey bugger named Marcus, who’d been trouble when the two sides met back in the autumn – chased the referee, Antonio Perez, up the pitch demanding to know “what’s his [Prendergast’s] job?” The incident reached a slightly sinister climax when a previously anonymous spectator with the looks of Bernard Bresslaw and the body language of Godzilla stomped over to the Convo bench and started issuing threats against its occupants, before eventually moving on to the other side of the pitch and occasionally gesticulating back throughout the remainder of the game; once again Jago best summed up the situation when he observed: “most clubs have a team mascot, but they’ve got a team bell-end.”
Against the backdrop of shipping goals against the run of play and provoking associates of the opposition into smashing up downtown Tokyo though, Convo did keep creating chances to score themselves, they just didn’t take them very well. Having drifted inside from his position on the left wing, an incredibly crotchety Taha Abussnena fired off a rotten choice of shot from about thirty yards out that understandably drifted well wide of the target, while Kieran O’Sullivan tried his luck from the edge of the Quarry Bank ‘D’ but unfortunately got a little too much lift on his shot and it cleared the crossbar.
Lone forward Chris McNally should really have done better when he got on the end of a lofted Parsons’ cross into the six-yard box, but having dived at the ball with all the enthusiasm and grace of a turtle being threatened by a rolling pin he inevitably glanced a terrible header wide of an upright that was further away from him than the actual goal line. When your deliveries are being wasted like that you might as well have a go yourself, which is exactly what Parsons did when he had a crack from outside the penalty area, although unfortunately he got far too much lift on his shot and it cleared the perimeter fence.
From a similar distance he tried his luck again later in the half, keeping the ball down but also directing it just wide, while O’Sullivan nearly got lucky when he skimmed a low effort from about thirty yards out that the Quarry Bank ‘keeper got behind but still almost fluffed over his shoulder and into the net (it just missed the foot of the nearest post to go out for a corner). The abiding memory of those closing minutes of the opening period though, will forever be of O’Sullivan again having a pop from a little outside the opposition penalty area, but unfortunately getting the sort of lift on his shot usually only experienced by missiles leaving a launch pad, and it cleared the bloody floodlights. He at least had the good grace to look appalled by his effort.
The opening ten minutes of the second half were undoubtedly the visitors’ best period of the game and how they didn’t increase their lead will forever be one of football’s great mysteries. They could have scored again inside the first sixty seconds when, taking advantage of their hosts returning from the break as though they’d spent it inhaling nitrous oxide, they waltzed down the centre of the pitch and fired a shot just over the crossbar from twenty-odd yards out. Convo’s all-round dopiness at that though, was nothing compared to Hendry’s, moments later, when he went flying way out of his area to clear a Quarry Bank through-ball but completely failed to make contact with it (for the second week running apparently), and a yellow shirt ran on past him and had nothing more troublesome to do than roll the thing into the empty net. Fortunately for those in grey one player had kept his wits about him, and having bust an absolute gut to catch up with his procrastinating opponent Welsh put in a perfectly-timed block-tackle on the edge of the box to concede a corner; from that one of the guests attempted a Giroud-esque flying back-heel flick, but once again the attempt ended up over and behind the goal.
Quarry Bank’s purple patch soon faded, but Convo were just as toothless as before when they regained the so-called upper hand. The flu-addled Mike Nawrocki had a pop from the edge of the visitors’ penalty area but their #1 could have thrown his cap on it (had he been wearing one), while after a brief spell of good pinging and passing from the hosts Anthony Lewis reminded everyone that he hadn’t gone home by having a crack from an almost identical position, although his effort flew over the crossbar. Abussnena went the closest of anyone in grey shortly after that when he finally got the ball and himself past the opposition right back, but from about twelve yards out he drilled a low shot against the foot of the nearest post… and his mood remained foul.
Against different opponents the Convo man’s choler might have been more noticeable, but because of the antics and tantrums of the Quarry Bank malcontents pretty much any outburst bar an atom-bomb blast would have been masked; like the Russians with Donald Trump, the visitors must also have had some good dirt on the referee because he continually turned a deaf ear to all sorts of grown-up language that they spat in his direction. Overhead the heavens were looking just as unpleasant, and the increasingly dark clouds seemed to herald either the rapture or that thundersnow that everyone’s been frotting themselves into a frenzy about, but despite a nasty little nip to the wind (which was behind the hosts in the second half) a brief bout of spitting was all that the combatants ultimately had to contend with.
From the elements, at any rate: moments before Prendergast passed on the flag of doom and replaced Nawrocki, Crockett warned his comrades “You’re all static!”, and while it’s possible that he was just referring to Hendry’s corduroys, he otherwise had a point. Despite all of their mid-range shots Convo had looked quite unenthusiastic since they’d fallen behind, but then around the midpoint of the half they underwent their most creative period of the game and could arguably (or on a different day) have scored a trio of goals. McNally was the first to go close when, despite looking well offside, he was played in by the wandering Abussnena – now up against a new, one armed, Quarry Bank left back, who’d replaced the lovely Marcus at half time – but was thwarted by a good save from the ‘keeper at the ensuing one-on-one.
Shortly after that Abussnena himself should have netted when he was played clear through into the visitors’ area, but under no pressure whatsoever his awful snap-shot became the latest Convo effort to register on the off-target-ometer. It was then the Captain’s turn again, and this one was classic McNally: he was sent scurrying after a pass down the inside-left channel, but just as he neared the eighteen-yard line and was getting ready to pull the trigger someone on the sideline with a high-pitched voice screamed out “Shoot!” (to the exasperation of Crockett – “don’t do that”) and like the thoroughbred (pantomime horse) that he is it appeared to startle him, he got the ball caught under his hooves, and eventually dragged a shot well wide of the furthest upright.
Back up the other end of the pitch Hendry made a great save at a one-on-one after dithering left-back Jerome Galy was dispossessed just outside his own penalty area, but then Abussnena had to leave for work and poor Nawrocki had to go back on in his place, just as things started getting particularly feisty. Graham Roberts (playing centre half with Welsh) and Hendry both went nose-to-nose with dickheads on the other team, while another goon in yellow tried to engage O’Sullivan in something similar only for his attempted intimidation to be batted away with amusing indifference, but it was painfully clear that the Convo squad were losing their heads and discipline just as their belligerent opponents had wanted all game. Everything came to a head when a disorientated Roberts forgot that he was on the halfway line rather than inside his own penalty area and launched into a challenge that – let’s be generous to him – was not in full accordance with the game’s laws; you could almost hear the words ‘do I not like that’ as the ref issued him with a straight red card, but he took his medicine without complaint amid the righteous indignation of the hypocritical Quarry Bank bench, which had piled onto the pitch to push and shove over the fallen player.
Despite being a man down it was the home side who dominated the final quarter-of-an-hour as, possibly galvanised by the deliberately provocative catcalls of their opponents in the follow-up to the sending off, they finally shook off the cobwebs and actually looked interested in getting something from the game. In an obvious tribute to the late Graham Taylor, Crockett attempted to rearrange the squad several minutes after they’d done it themselves, but no matter who authorised the changes it seemed to work: McNally proved what a turnip he is by putting a stooping header wide of the target from barely two yards out after an initial Convo shot had been deflected into the air, leaving the flapping, floored Quarry Bank ‘keeper (theoretically) in all sorts of trouble, but then with a little under five minutes remaining Kent picked up possession out on the right and dribbled the ball into the area past several (fairly lame) challenges before dinking it past the #1 from near the penalty spot.
The goal might not have had the detonative impact of his equally-late intervention in the previous meeting between the two teams but it did set up a potential grandstand finish. Unfortunately for Convo though, it was only O’Sullivan who went remotely close to snatching a point when, not long after he’d drilled an effort straight at the opposition ‘keeper from the corner of the penalty area, he had the last chance of the game with a sort of overhead/swivelling punt that, like so many other attempts on Saturday, would have been more suitable in the Six Nations.
So why did it take until the closing stages of the game for Convocation to wake up and show a bit of heart for what was always going to be a battle? Could it be that they needed to lose their discipline and to engage their unsavoury and spiteful opponents in a taste of their own antics before they found the secret of footballing success? Let’s hope not because we don’t want the club to venture down that road too often, but there’s little doubt that their labours improved once Roberts had been sent off and their backs were to the wall. (On a related note, you did have to wonder whether a Quarry Bank player would have gotten his marching orders for the same challenge, or if a different referee would have only issued a yellow card.)
There was a definite whiff of smash and grab about the whole unpleasant encounter, but Convo can’t complain because they just weren’t at the races for most of the game; they could have been second in the league at Christmas, but now, just a couple of weeks later and with only four fixtures remaining (!), they’re glancing over their shoulders at the dregs of the division once again (they’ll also be off the top of the Fair Play table, no doubt). Still, at least this cloud has a couple of silver linings (as well as hail at full time): firstly, cup runs and unlucky draws pending, they shouldn’t have to face Quarry Bank again this season, and secondly, for those of an astronomical bent, it should be possible to see O’Sullivan’s shot from the end of the first half in the constellation of Orion for the next few months.
Man Of The Match: Parsons was lively down the right flank, particularly in the first period, while Welsh had a decent enough game and was unlucky that his major contribution to it was to deflect the ball past his own ‘keeper. No one else really stood out though, and Nawrocki has an excuse for that; he played most of the game while ill – and went back on when he could have buggered off home to bed – so he gets the nod for a commitment to the cause above and beyond the call of duty.
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; Galy, Roberts G, Welsh J, Kent; Abussnena, Lewis, Nawrocki, O’Sullivan, Parsons; McNally; Sub: Prendergast
Pretty dismal really, 2 nil at HT and 6 nil at FT. Sam P made his comeback though so that was a small consolation.
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; Parsons, Welsh, Welsh, Galy (Farrell); Abussnena (Prendergast), De Buffalo (McNally), Nawrocki, Kent, Majer (Lewis); Kaye
Just when you think that we're on the cusp of doing something good, just when you even DARE to dream, the Convo do that most Convo of things ... sweep the rug from under your feet and leave you crestfallen on the floor!
It was to Huyton that Captain McNally led his charges, looking to end 2016 on a high, and hopefully holding onto the 2nd place in the Old Boys Division 4 that a 4 game unbeaten run had propelled them to. Amazingly, the Convo hadn't tasted defeat since the shock home defeat to Rhein in mid October. These were heady days indeed.
In the end though, we left the Lord Derby academy with that sinking feeling again. ACOL took the lead after only a couple of minutes, a not-so-shocking slip from Roberts handing them the lead as the striker slotted coolly past Riley in the visitors net. 15 minutes later we conceded a second, the goal looking distinctly offside. Whilst the protests went on however, it was clear the Convo hadn't got their heads back in the game, as we duly conceded a third 2 minutes later. We were having such a bad time that the skipper thought seriously about changes .... after only 25 minutes! He left it, and we slowly came back into the game, Byatt forcing a fine save from all of thirty yards.
After some HT cajoling, we showed alot more spirit in the second half, a half defined by two penalties, one given, one not. ACOL were reduced to ten men after the penalty taker earned himself a second yellow for scything down Welsh after fluff ling his lines from 12 yards (kudos Riley for the save, Hendry would have been proud. The Convo were then denied what we thought to be a stone wall late in the second half, but by full time we couldn't really bemoan the scoreline. A practical no show in the first half was at least somewhat put out of mind by a spirited second half performance. Bookings for Galy and Divin evident that we actually put a foot in in the send half!
We're now down to 5th in the table, which is much more familiar surroundings. But hey, New Year, New Hop and all that jazz! Let's get ourselves back up that table lads! #uptheConvo
P.S it wasn't all doom and gloom, look at these shots of Merseyside in the Mist. Lovely!
[Report from Facebook]
Convocation (4-5-1): Riley; Byatt, Welsh A, Roberts G, Galy; Abussnena, Kent, Nawrocki, O'Sullivan, Parsons; Lewis; Subs: Welsh J, De Buffalo, Kaye, McNally
Convo up to second as the black dog watches.
Annnnnnd 3 assists for Breno!
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; Galy, Roberts G, Welsh A, Farrell; Kent, Nawrocki, De Buffalo, Salgado, Parsons; Lewis; Subs: McNally, Byatt, Abussnena
Convocation (4-5-1): Round; Galy, Welsh A, Welsh J, Byatt; Salgado, Abussnena, Kent, Nawrocki, Parsons; Lewis; Subs: Roberts G, Majer, Ahmed, McNally
Bobby Mimms reports
If revenge is a dish best served cold then try explaining this feast to the footballing connoisseur. It was only a few months ago (that’s discounting the ‘close season’) that these two sides last met and Convocation were given an almighty kicking as their 2015-16 campaign fizzled out into a wet fart, so how cathartic it must have been to come up against a much more subdued Kingsford on Saturday and exact a bite of supposedly premature retribution. Something’s happened in a short space of time to the club formerly of Fazakerley (but who now play their home games just up the road by the Fiveways – there may be a clue in that) and it clearly hasn’t been for the better seeing as how they performed in this match with a defensive style that would be ideally portrayed in a game of charades by pointing two fingers to your temple. The degeneration was manna from heaven for their Wyncote hosts, contributing towards them scoring ten in a game for the second time in just a handful of weeks, with a couple of hat tricks thrown into the rout as a bonus.
The magnitude of their victory was all the more remarkable when you consider that with the half-hour mark looming the score was still 0-0, although no one watching would have been fooled into believing that the one-way traffic (albeit with rotten finishing) and desperate defending had represented an evenly-balanced contest. Very early in the tie Kingsford were reduced to hoofing the ball out of play under even the minimum of pressure whenever it reached their final third, which at one point resulted in possibly the most redundant piece of guidance ever proffered during a Convocation game – and that’s a high bar – when John Farrell called “see it out” to his grey-shirted colleagues as a wellied clearance left the pitch about thirty yards above head height. In fairness that wasn’t the only asinine advice to be heard on Saturday, as at about the same time Captain Chris McNally implored his charges “don’t just pass – pass to someone.” Don’t give that job to Gareth Southgate just yet.
Due to a spot of recent rain the combatants had been consigned to Wyncote’s 3G pitch and it only took about sixty seconds after kick off for Convo to get an inkling of just how comfortable their afternoon was going to be, when Breno Salgado attacked down the right and, with a low pass into the Kingsford area, found Mike Kent in enough space to park an aircraft. The visitors’ marking (if you could call it that) had to be seen to be believed and gave the diminutive guy enough time to build an aircraft, but possibly surprised at the ease with which he’d gained possession he scuffed his subsequent shot and an opponent in white was able to clear the ball from inside the six-yard box before it could trickle into the goal.
Back in April when Kingsford last visited Wyncote it was almost exactly twenty years to the day since the infamous Man United grey-shirt debacle at Southampton, and on Saturday they seemed to be having a similar obfuscational problem judging by how often they were incapable of passing to players in their own coloured togs, although in fairness the similarity and (almost) clash of kits was also proving to be something of a headache to your correspondent on the sideline. It could be one explanation for why the visitors just weren’t at the races from the moment the game got underway, and it was Convo’s Brazilian in particular who benefitted from their apparent bewilderment in the early exchanges. With a throw-in he set up Kieran O’Sullivan to curl an effort just over the opposition crossbar, while not long after that, having picked up possession on the halfway line, he played Dale Majer clear through on goal, although the youngster then displayed an unexpected lack of confidence when he saw the whites of the ‘keeper’s eyes and dragged his shot wide of the target from the edge of the eighteen-yard box.
Throughout the match the Kingsford #1 was regularly guilty of carrying the ball out of his penalty area while in the process of kicking from his hands (something baby-faced referee Ben Moorcroft-Moran continually failed to spot, possibly due to the spaghettification he appeared to have undergone), but there was nothing suspect with the one-on-one save he made as the midpoint of the half neared and Taha Abussnena was played in by another lovely defence-splitting pass from Salgado. Not long after that the glover was called upon again to smother a low O’Sullivan shot from the edge of the box, while several minutes later Majer had an ambitious attempt from its corner that only just missed the target, before rewarding the Social Secretary for his earlier assists by setting him up with a chance of his own, which he blasted over the crossbar from barely eight yards out.
You began to wonder just what the home side had to do to get the ball in the net, whilst at the same time remembering that they would hardly be treading new ground were they to have ‘one of those days’. They’d lined up in their now-customary 4-5-1 formation, with Matt Round in goal behind a defence comprising of (from left to right) Andy Parsons, Liam Byatt, Andy Welsh and Farrell. Ahead of them Abussnena (l) and Majer (r) were on the flanks, with Kent, O’Sullivan and Mike Nawrocki in between, while Salgado was the ‘one’ on his own up front and McNally and Anthony Lewis started the game on the bench. Unfortunately, it’s a sad state of affairs to also have to report that no one was wearing a poppy, on their shirt or elsewhere – a dark day for the club indeed.
Well, perhaps until the twenty-eighth minute when they finally broke the deadlock. A lovely ball was played out of Convo’s half and through the heart of the Kingsford back line – it’s not important who by – and Abussnena ran on after it, without an opponent for company, until he reached the edge of the penalty area where, extremely unselfishly, he squared possession to his left and to Kent. Now to say that the pass was a little unlawful would be an understatement because there was not so much a whiff of offside about the recipient as a stench, but unencumbered by a referee’s whistle he slotted low past the advance of the #1, and the lack of a protest from anyone in white told you all you needed to know about how the rest of the game was going to pan out.
Nawrocki thumped a twenty-five yard howitzer against the Kingsford crossbar not long after that (O’Sullivan shot wide from the rebound), while with about eight minutes to go until the break Majer forced the Kingsford ‘keeper to push a low effort out for a corner after Salgado – him again, he was having a great game – had played him through from inside Convo territory. The resultant flag kick was hardly something you’d admit to having practised on the training ground, for when it was (somewhat unexpectedly) punted out to O’Sullivan, just outside the penalty area, he sliced an attempted half-volley so much that his own goal would have been at threat had the ball not flown out for a throw-in.
The wretchedness of that effort was very quickly forgotten though, as the midfielder did get the ball into the Kingsford net less than sixty seconds later. Abussnena laid waste to the visitors’ defences down the left flank and, having eased his way into their box, pulled a pass back to O’Sullivan from near the byline, and from a little under fifteen yards out he hit a shot almost directly at the ‘keeper, but which a well-meaning defender deflected past him with an outstretched leg.
With only a few minutes to go until the interval it was probably (?) imperative that the visitors didn’t concede again beforehand if they were to stand any chance of getting something from the game, but it wasn’t to be. A Round goal kick was flicked on in the centre circle – it’s not important who by – and Abussnena showed the Kingsford back line a clean pair of heels, ignored Majer making a supportive run to his right, and tapped the ball past the opposition #1 well outside of the penalty area before running on and rolling the thing into the empty net.
The problem with scoring of course is that by default you automatically give possession back to the opposition, and while there should’ve been little for Convo to worry about in that regard against such amenable opponents they took their complacency a little too far and Kingsford pulled a goal back straight from the restart. They played the ball out wide to their left flank and dinked it about a bit, before one of their ilk then drifted in towards the corner of the home side’s penalty area and fired off a low effort across Round that crept into the net at the furthest post. Somehow Convocation had conceded from their guests’ only shot of the half worthy of the name – leopards and spots, and all that.
Rather unsportingly, they got the second period going without the Kingsford players having returned to the field; it’s difficult to imagine any other explanation for why they found it so easy to score three times in the first three minutes of the half other than the visitors weren’t on the pitch. It all began with Majer finally getting the goal that his performance before the break had deserved, blasting the ball into the roof of the net after an Abussnena cross through the box had found him untroubled by man or beast at the back stick.
Despite coming across as increasingly dispirited Kingsford did make an attempt at attacking from the ensuing restart but Parsons quickly nipped that move in the bud, heading an attempted through ball down to Nawrocki who in turn sent Kent flying towards the box with a lovely weighted pass, and using his left peg no less the little fella side-footed under the opposition ‘keeper from about ten yards out. Lessons well and truly not learned, the boys in white then gifted possession to their hosts straight from the next kick-off and after the Convo midfield had pinged passes around their opponents as though were sacks of sawdust O’Sullivan eventually took up the mantle in the ‘D’, from where he blasted an archetypal net bulger past the beleaguered #1. The visitors were a mess and looked thoroughly shell-shocked; even OJ’s defence was never this shaky.
Lewis replaced Majer not long after that and Convo appeared to convert into a 4-4-2 formation, as the incomer joined Salgado up front while no one seemed to fill the vacated right-wing slot. As you might expect when facing such an endearingly shambolic rearguard the incomer was involved in the action pretty much immediately: Abussnena attacked down the left flank he was patrolling and, from near the byline, pulled the ball back to his colleague who should have slotted in what was almost an open goal (due to the #1 being attracted to the source of the pass), but had his effort cleared off the line by the Kingsford defender who most resembled a defender. That did little to dispel the danger though, as possession was ceded straight back to Abussnena, who then forced a great save from the ‘keeper in a rare case of him using his hands inside the penalty area (otherwise he continued to have no respect for its boundaries).
From the resultant corner Lewis blasted a shot well over the crossbar, but he would go on to score Convo’s eighth – a notch that your correspondent has absolutely no recollection of despite scribbling notes like a man possessed throughout the match – and it warmed the heart to later see him chasing a back pass down from the halfway line even though the game was already well into rout territory. Moments before that goal Abussnena had netted his second of the game with a twenty-five yard effort that seemed to go through the ‘keeper, although unfortunately, in the build-up, Salgado was taken out by a salty challenge from an opponent that elicited a Beano-esque ‘Yaroo!’ – no one vocalises a painful foul like the Brazilian – and unable to continue he was replaced by McNally.
Convo went almost fifteen minutes after Lewis’ goal without scoring again, during which time the visitors managed to fire off their second shot of the game (a low eight-yard effort that Round was able to smother easily) and the referee’s decisions began to stink of pity towards them. But then Farrell went steaming up the right wing and put a lovely cross into the box that his Captain headed on at the near post, enabling Abussnena at the back to stab the ball into the net for his hat trick.
With the game long since won Byatt decided that he might fancy a go at the Kingsford coconut shy and, having picked up possession inside his own half, proceeded to slalom his way through assorted white-shirted challenges in the direction of their goal – having refused to pass for a good fifteen seconds he was finally tackled inside the opposition penalty area when it had started looking as though only the perimeter fence was going to stop him dribbling all the way to Oggy Shore. It was O’Sullivan though, who went on to net what would turn out to be Convo’s last after he too had caught the close-control bug, eventually slipping the ball past the opposition ‘keeper after having been played in by Kent as the final stage of a move that had begun back down the pitch with Round.
Within sixty seconds of that the young official called it a day, eight minutes prematurely by your correspondent’s reckoning – the bookies won’t be happy – and upon an enquiry in the post-match press conference he readily admitted that he’d put Kingsford out of their misery early because their plight was becoming embarrassing. You’d have to be a particularly unpleasant sort not to agree with him, especially as on the whole he put in a decent performance at the whistle even if he didn’t really have to do much more than usher players back towards the centre circle after goals. But if Convo go on to miss out on the title by a goal difference of one…
Stop laughing at the back. Of course they’re highly unlikely to even get close to winning the league, no matter how many ten-goal victories against cannon fodder they can rustle up, but at the end of a week in which Britain is no longer the biggest fuck-up of 2016 it’s clear that the suggestion isn’t the complete impossibility it’s usually seemed in years gone by. On Saturday Kingsford may have been very accommodating opponents, and as much as their players looked in a state of shock at the end they’d also been perpetually disorientated throughout the game, but this is the sort of utterly dominant performance that Convo would have so often not converted into a victory in the past, so let’s toast their new-found ability to finish off opponents who are on the ropes.
And let’s not have a repeat of the Rhein fiasco when the teams meet again later in the season.
Man Of The Match: Obviously everyone played well, but special mention must go to Salgado and Majer for their excellent first-half performances – they deserved greater reward than just one goal between them. Top of the lot though, has got to be the hat-trick scorers Abussnena and O’Sullivan, and of the two the latter is this week’s MOTM because he seemed to be everywhere at all times – omnipresence is so undervalued.
Convocation (4-5-1): Round; Parsons, Byatt, Welsh A, Farrell; Abussnena, Nawrocki, Kent, O’Sullivan, Majer; Salgado; Subs: Lewis, McNally
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; Parsons, Byatt, Roberts G, Farrell; Abussnena, Ahmed, O'Sullivan, Nawrocki, Galy; Kent; Subs: Riley, McNally
Bobby Mimms reports (through the medium of a nawrocki)
Could this possibly be the most ‘Convocation’ result in nigh-on forty-three years of the club’s existence? In all that time consistency has been a concept that’s never really caught on with them, but even so Saturday’s result was one hell of a swing in their fortunes considering that when they met the same opponents at Thomas Road a fortnight ago they ran riot and won at a canter, 10-2. In fairness, there were signs in that match that Rhein weren’t as bad as the final scoreline suggested, but even so the three points that they picked up from this baffling turnaround were still their first of the season, and the first that Convo have dropped in a month.
The hostages to fortune picked for the Wyncote return and who, let’s be honest, were undoubtedly at their best in the warm-up consisted of Alex Hendry in goal, Ewan MacDonald, Graham Roberts, Liam Byatt and John Farrell in the back line, Chris McNally up front on his own, and Luke Riley (left wing), Dale Majer (right wing), Andy Welsh, Mike Nawrocki and Craig Kaye in midfield. The latter of those, along with friend Jay Railton (who started on the bench with Mike Kent), was making his Convo debut having got in touch with the club through the website – after this match, the equivalent of looking for a ten-bob hooker in a smut mag. It remains to be seen if either of them is ever heard of again.
Proceedings got underway on pitch #2 with the hosts doing the honours, the blanket of dead leaves covering the sward reminding everyone with their cupric hues that autumn is once again upon us; within ninety minutes the detritus would look quite lively compared with Convo’s performance. It was actually they though, who had the game’s first decent chance when Nawrocki fired off a shot with his left foot – an extremity usually only used for standing on – but such a rarity was not in cahoots with any reward and the ball did not bother the back of the Rhein net.
After that not-particularly-high peak it was pretty much all downhill for Convocation, the first warning sign of impending ignominy being when Hendry was caught out trying to execute a Cruyff turn inside his own box – later described as ‘much more Jordi than Johan’ – although somehow his buffoonery went unpunished. On a more positive goalkeeping note, he prevented his side falling behind not long after that when a touch of trouble in MacDonald country escalated into the defender scything down an opponent inside the penalty area really quite impressively – you could almost hear Roberts purring in approval – and the resultant spot kick was thwarted with a fantastic save.
With half time approaching Welsh had the ball blasted into his mush and, almost immediately resembling Sissy Spacek in the closing stages of Carrie, would have been ordered off the pitch by referee Andy Pownall to get cleaned up even if he’d wanted to stay on (he was replaced by Railton). Even without such bloody inconvenience though, it was clear that the stroll in the park of a fortnight ago had turned into something of a stomp in the swamp. It was goalless as the teams swapped ends, but with Vice-captain Simon Crockett “unavailable for comment” on the sideline (apparently he ‘did nothing’) it didn’t remain so for long.
Rhein took the lead several minutes after the restart when they attacked down their left flank and put a low cross into the Convo box, where a striped-shirted player scuffed a shot into the back of the net in mid-stumble, his ungainliness wrong-footing Hendry and the covering Riley. The defending in the build-up to the goal had been slack to say the least, and for his part in it Farrell paid by taking a ball to the face a little later, an ordeal that is becoming something of a party piece for the club secretary (the silver lining for him being that his schnozz didn’t explode like Welsh’s had).
The visitors doubled their advantage with about twenty minutes remaining when one of their players benefitted from some absolutely dreadful marking at a corner to head home with the minimum of fuss. That was effectively game over as it just didn’t look likely that Convo could get back into it; towards the end of last season Rhein had been two-up at Wyncote and yet lost, but on Saturday a repeat wasn’t really on the cards as their hosts’ midfield looked devoid of ideas, while McNally was having a bit of an Alfred Hitchcock afternoon, in that if you watched what was happening on the pitch very carefully you might perhaps spot his cameo in the background.
It actually looked more likely that Rhein would increase their lead, and they really should have done when their “mardy striker” (as he was described in the APH after the match) got in behind the Convo defence – can you get behind an entity that doesn’t exist? – and actually rounded Hendry, only to see his subsequent shot from a tightish angle cleared off the goal line by Riley. Full time and the walk (back to the changies) of shame followed several minutes later.
So once again Convocation come across as the club where common sense goes to die. Nobody in their right mind would have predicted a reversal of fortunes like this, and while the players would surely never take any fixture for granted they must have thought that this one was theirs to lose – which, of course, they did. They were as woeful on Saturday as they were magnificent when they faced Rhein a fortnight ago, and though this result must be seen as a blip, such erraticism will always prevent them from earning their way out of the league basement.
To add insult to injury for both club and player, it was revealed after the match that Welsh had forgotten his contacts and hadn’t been able to see a thing going on around him. There wasn’t much difference between him and everyone else in grey, actually.
Man Of The Match: Withheld.
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; MacDonald, Roberts G, Byatt, Farrell; Riley, Kaye, Welsh A, Nawrocki, Majer; McNally; Subs: Railton, Kent
The annual Intermediate Cup first-hurdle exit...
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; MacDonald (Galy), Byatt, Welsh J, Farrell; Abussnena, Welsh A (Majer), Salgado (Kent), O'Sullivan (McNally), Ahmed; Lewis
Bobby Mimms reports
Dare we dream? Have Convo’s First Team become flat-track bullies again, emulating their great forebears of the eighties and nineties that could swat aside the midges but were never quite able to slay the really big beasts? After a difficult opening few weeks to the season they’ve now won three games in a row – a veritable streak – against the cannon fodder of Division Four, culminating in this thrashing of Rhein that was completed almost with a swagger, as though they knew that there was nothing their besieged opponents could do about it. They should actually have scored more but… well, they are still Convocation.
Strangely though, it wouldn’t have been undeserved had Rhein netted another three or four of their own, because despite Convo’s overall, thorough domination their rearguard still looked incredibly shaky whenever the ball went near them (well, they are still Convocation). The home side seemed like a decent bunch of guys (although Alex Hendry may beg to differ) but were, on the whole, pretty awful at actually playing the game – a sort of Tim Nice But Dim of the Old Boys League – which meant that towards the end of proceedings, when defending had acquired a stigma usually only reserved for war criminals and sex offenders, both teams were laughably inept at the back and traded blows on the front foot like a couple of punch-drunk boxers.
It would be churlish though, to focus on Convocation’s faults and not to heap praise on them (Convo, not the faults), because for most of the time (going forward) they were bloody good. The vanguard for the first period comprised solely of Captain Chris McNally, and though he was occasionally in the thick of the action, including scoring from a distance so small that even an electron microscope would have been unable to measure it, he was practically peripheral compared to the five-man midfield behind him. There was a handsome fluidity to their passing and movement that the Rhein players just couldn’t cope with, and the ringmaster of the extravaganza was Adel Ahmed, an accomplishment all the more impressive when you consider that he was frequently mistaken for some sort of footballing piñata by his opponents; he was instrumental in most of the visitors’ chances, particularly those of Taha Abussnena, who netted a hat trick (whilst wearing mustard boots); later on in the match the other flanker, Breno Salgado, also found the back of the net despite, by all accounts, feeling a little the worse for wear. Even after there were multiple substitutions at the break, with Anthony Lewis and Mikes Kent and Nawrocki joining in the fun on the pitch, the home side were powerless against their guests’ middle tier and the goals continued to flow.
Amazingly, considering how things panned out, almost nothing of note happened in the first ten minutes after Convo’s kick-off, although a helicopter hovered overhead for a while raising the possibility that someone at Sky had had some sort of premonition and their cameras were at the ready. It was a warmish afternoon – which can be the only explanation for why the watching Paul Owen-Browne was wearing flip-flops well into October – although the bright sunshine was occasionally blocked out by passing clouds that otherwise held no threat, while down on terra firma the Thomas Lane grass was a little on the long side, not that it would prove too detrimental to the flow of the game (well, Convocation’s game).
The slow start wouldn’t last for long and became a ketchup start (as in, nothing for ages and then BOOM) in the twelfth minute when any Rhein illusions that they were Convo’s footballing equals were dashed after Ahmed played a diagonal pass into their penalty area for Abussnena, who had run in off the left flank, and from about fifteen yards out he curled a lovely shot across the target and into its top corner. The two almost joined forces again sixty seconds later when the Kuwaiti international drilled a low ball across the face of the hosts’ goalmouth that would’ve only needed a touch at the furthest post to put it into the net, although reminiscent of Paul Gascoigne during semi-final extra time at Euro ‘96 his colleague slid in but found such a manoeuvre agonisingly beyond his reach.
There was no need for the visitors to worry about the missed opportunity coming back to haunt them though (or rather, they never had time to), because they got another chance, again within sixty seconds, and scored. Salgado and Abussnena ganged up to outfox several opponents well inside the Rhein half, before one of them (your correspondent forgets whom) played the ball into the box and to the feet of Ahmed, and he drilled a low shot into the bottom corner of the goal.
For all of Convo’s good work their hosts were also making things exceptionally easy for them with some awfully lightweight opposition, and barely two minutes passed after the second notch before a third was scored. To add insult to Rhein’s self-inflicted injury this particular setback actually began at one of their own corners, the in-swinger being cleared by the visitors before Ahmed played a great pass into the opposition half for Abussnena to run onto, and as the home ‘keeper advanced out of his area the man in grey dinked the yellow ball past him before going on and rolling the thing into the vacated net.
As previously mentioned though, Convo will always be cursed with being Convo, so it wasn’t all plain sailing even when they had their opponents on the rack. Ahmed was guilty of taking a terrible free kick from down the side of the Rhein penalty area at one point, although if he was simply adhering to the ‘when it Rome’ philosophy then there was a method to his madness as the first defender to what was little more than a pea roller somehow sliced an attempted clearance over his own crossbar despite facing away from the goal – the game was turning into a glorious comedy of errors.
Owen-Browne was told off by referee Brian Seddon shortly after that for having the audacity to flag for offsides (albeit only at the Convo end), but then without warning his mates on the pitch went and let their guard down with some classic defensive muckaboutery. The Rhein #1 launched a long goal kick down the pitch that bounced beyond the visitors’ midfield and then over their poorly-positioned defence, who just watched it in astonishment as though it were a flying pig, and from there two striped-shirted players ran on at Hendry with one of them slotting the ball past him from about fifteen yards out.
Once again Convo didn’t have too long to worry about whether that was going to be problematic as within another couple of minutes they’d scored a fourth, having already squandered a great chance moments after conceding. From the flank, left back Jerome Galy played a poor pass behind Tim Roberts that the midfielder accidentally flicked over a challenging defender with the back of one of his heels, but having taken advantage of such outlandish creativity and run on he could only blast the bouncing ball just over the Rhein crossbar on the half volley. Not for the first or last time that afternoon the home side didn’t learn anything from their reprieve and almost immediately they were punished when a Convo free kick on the halfway line was knocked to Abussnena on the edge of the penalty area, and he shrugged off an opponent on his shoulder before striking a low shot that the opposition ‘keeper fumbled into the net as he dropped down to his right to smother it.
After that blunder you could sense that the players in grey saw the remainder of what would surely be a victory as a chance to have some fun (it’ll never catch on), and Ahmed fuelled that belief when he attempted to send McNally clear with a rabona pass through the Rhein back line, although spoiling the spectacle for everyone the Captain had strayed offside. Moments before that though, on the half-hour mark, had been the weekly visit to Hendry Histrionics, the Convocation soap opera (within a soap opera) in which the ‘keeper completely overreacts to relatively innocuous situations, this time a robust challenge from an opposition forward that caused him to spill the ball (there’s nothing like pretending that you’ve had your leg snapped in half to distract from the fact that your gloves are smeared in butter).
McNally then scored Convo’s fifth, several minutes after his careless wandering had ruined Ahmed’s potential uber-assist. Abussnena attacked down his left flank, beating a couple of inept opponents two or three times in the process before drilling the ball into the six-yard box almost from the byline, and though the smashed effort was probably a shot his Captain had to make sure from less than a blade of grass out that it did find the back of the net.
Rhein could well have scored a second not long after the restart when their #9 ran onto a hoofed clearance out of his defence, but from about twelve yards wide of the target (and under pressure from Convo centre-half Jon Welsh) he blasted an effort over the crossbar, and yet again his side was quickly made to pay for such wastefulness. Within sixty seconds a Hendry goal kick was knocked on to Galy by Ahmed, and having ran on from the edge of the centre circle the Frenchman played a low ball into the visitors’ area for Salgado, who took a touch before firing a low shot past the erratic #1.
McNally paid tribute to the summer accomplishments of Chris Mears and Jack Laugher shortly after that, flinging himself to the deck inside the Rhein penalty area as though taking off from the 3m board, while moments later Roberts went as close as is possible to netting without doing so when he followed up an Abussnena shot that had been blocked by the ‘keeper with an effort of his own that smashed against one of the uprights and rebounded back into the arms of the disorientated #1. For a change it was Convo’s turn to pay for a missed chance as they went and conceded again themselves inside the closing seconds of the half: the game had been stopped momentarily due to a head injury to Hendry’s earlier ‘slayer’, but when the home side gave possession back to their guests from the uncontested drop ball right-back Andy Parsons played a Graham Moore-esque ‘bombscare’ pass along the edge of his own penalty area and with Liam Byatt caught in no man’s land an opponent nipped in to intercept, ran on, and found the net with a low strike.
Interestingly, when Ye Olde Triple Substitution made an appearance during the interval none of the back line were hooked despite them having partaken in some terrifying defending – you never lose it – while their team mates at the other end of the pitch had looked like the second coming of Brazil 1970. Instead Salgado, Roberts and McNally were swapped with Kent, Nawrocki and Lewis respectively, the latter receiving the baton of crapulence from the departing Brazilian with which he too would trail ‘fumes’ wherever he went.
Andy Welsh conceded a free kick right on the edge of his own eighteen-yard box in the first few minutes of the second period that could have made things interesting had the taker found the back of the net, but Hendry was on hand – pardon the pun – to make a necessary save and tip the ball over the crossbar, while just after that Kent shanked an effort over the frame of the Rhein goal at a corner, the subsequent collective groan from everyone concerned with Convo enough to warn shipping on the Irish Sea away from costal perils. It was one of those games though, were you only had to bide your time and another addition to the scoresheet would eventually come along, and so it was when Abussnena and Parsons traded flicks and taps with each other inside their hosts’ half before playing a pass out to Ahmed on the right when one of them was closed down, and from there he knocked a delightful cross into the penalty area that Galy met perfectly, whacking his shot in off the underside of the horizontal – the left back’s reward was to be subbed immediately, Liam Doyle replacing him.
That was also more-or-less Abussnena’s last contribution to the game and he was hooked in a straight swap with Luke Riley on the hour. At about the same time it started to look as though the referee was taking pity on the home side as any incident that was even remotely 50-50 was awarded in their favour, and it was Ahmed who seemed to suffer from this the most as he became the target of a fair bit of rough-housing from his opponents. He managed to fire off a shot that bent wide of the target from half-a-dozen yards outside the Rhein penalty area at one point, despite having lumps kicked out of him in the process, while later on in the half he was hacked down in a challenge from behind but then penalised himself when he grabbed the ball as he fell on it.
There’s no suggestion that the official was biased, but even if he had been it didn’t really make a difference as Convo kept on scoring. They made it 8-2 with the midpoint of the second period looming when Kent, on the advance down the right, slipped the ball inside to Lewis who then streaked through the Rhein half and, cleverly ignoring an overlapping run from Riley, fired off a twenty-five yard effort that flew into the back of the net via one of the posts.
It was around about then that the game went really nuts, with Rhein suddenly deciding to show a bit of passion and both teams going at each other gung-ho. Straight from the restart the home side flew down their left flank, the player in possession skipping past Parsons as though he wasn’t there, and having burst into the Convo penalty area he fired off a low shot that Hendry did well to push away to his left. Within minutes they were on the attack again through their #9, only this time it was Byatt who could have been wading through glue as his opponent ghosted past him, but having done so the youngster in stripes blasted his effort way over the crossbar at the resultant one-on-one.
Inadvertently that set up Convo to score their ninth. Hendry launched the goal kick into the centre circle, where it was flicked on by Welsh (A) for Kent, and he zipped down the inside-right channel, his legs a blur like the Roadrunner’s, before whacking a shot from just inside the penalty area that the Rhein ‘keeper did well to parry away to his right. Unfortunately for the glover, Lewis was running in at the perfect time and place and he smashed the ball back past him and into the net from about eight yards out.
You had to take your hat off to the home side at that point because they refused to lie down and die, and once again, straight from the restart, they went back up the other end of the pitch and fired an effort over the crossbar. Again, again, that only prefaced a goal for their opponents, although for a change this one, the game’s last, was down to some dopey Rhein defending rather than slack-jawed astonishment at the Convo maelstrom going on around them. The visitors won a corner that the #1 smothered after a potentially deceptive flick, but when he then tried to distribute the ball all of his team mates left it for someone else and Kent nipped in to intercept, before running on, getting lucky with a number of ricochets, and screwing a pass back from near the byline into the path of Riley, who thumped a shot into the net from about twelve yards out.
Finally that did seem to knock the stuffing out of the home side and in the remaining five minutes they never got near their guests’ goal again. At the other end of the pitch both Kent and Lewis took advantage of their opponents’ belated deflation, as well as good build-up play from their own colleagues, to waste golden opportunities to add to Convo’s tally, both of them blasting shots over the crossbar (the latter with the last kick of the game). Nonetheless, when Mr Seddon gave three toots on his whistle to put Rhein out of their misery it also signified that the chaps from Mather Avenue had won, and in doing so at a canter they’d also done their goal difference a world of good.
It was great to see that they never took their collective foot off the pedal and were still looking for goals at the end despite having run themselves ragged over the course of the game; on a similar note it was encouraging that they frequently punished their bumbling opponents for mistakes, immediately, rather than letting them off the hook. Theirs was football to get the crowds back – there were sizeable hordes on both sides of the pitch – and though Rhein did take ‘shambolic’ to new levels, Convo’s utter mastery would have left the hosts feeling as black and blue as the stripes they were wearing even if they’d shown a bit of gumption.
It’s Rainhill Town in the Intermediate Cup next week, and as the rule of thumb is to always be wary of teams called ‘Town’ Convocation will probably need a bit more of the bullying swagger that they exuded in this match.
Man Of The Match: It’s unusual to look past a hat-trick scorer such as Abussnena, but it’s nigh-on impossible to overlook Ahmed’s contribution to Convo’s victory. He was integral to almost everything that was good in their performance, and there’s no way they would have won so handsomely had he not been playing.
Convocation (4-5-1): Hendry; Galy, Byatt, Welsh J, Parsons; Abussnena, Ahmed, Welsh A, Roberts T, Salgado; McNally; Subs: Kent, Lewis, Nawrocki, Doyle, Riley
Convocation (4-2-3-1): Riley; Parsons, Welsh J, Roberts G, Farrell; Welsh A, Nawrocki; Abussnena, Roberts T, Kent; McNally; Subs: Byatt, Salgado, Lewis, O’Sullivan, Ahmed
Bobby Mimms reports
At first it was difficult for those watching from the sideline to work out what all the fuss was about. It had been clear from the start of the game that the Quarry Bank players were a rather angry bunch, but even so their collective reaction to a headed clearance at one of their corners did seem more than a little extreme. But, in amongst all the effs and cees, all the ill-tempered jostling between opponents and the vituperative bulldozing of referee Lewis Webster like he were a modern-day Andy D’Urso, it was possible to spot clues to just what their beef was: with Luke Riley, the Convocation ‘keeper, fiddling with the net on his goal whilst apoplectic opponents ragged it around as though about to climb it, and the chief instigator of the commotion, Mike Kent, making a hasty exit from the scene almost with his hands behind his back while whistling and squinting into the distance at nothing in particular, you didn’t need to be Hercules Poirot to work out what had happened.
The corner hadn’t been cleared. With only five minutes remaining and Convo a goal in the lead the ball had been headed through a hole in the net by their man on (behind?) the line, and while that’s not really the way to win, and such (unintentional) skulduggery should not be encouraged, it was only fair that the boys from Wyncote then held on to claim all three points because they’d been much the better team. If the Quarry Bank players had put half as much energy into playing actual football as they had into trying to pick fights with their guests then this incarnation of the Mather Avenue derby might have been a more evenly balanced one, but as it was they were just big bundles of rage – talk about taking your problems onto the field – and the final scoreline flattered them.
As it was Convocation’s first win of the season though, you won’t hear any complaints from them as to just how close run a one-horse race it had been. Decked out once again in grey (or silver if you’re from Woolton) they’d kicked off with Riley between the sticks and behind a quartet of (from left to right) Martin Lloyd, Liam Byatt, Jonny Welsh and Ewan MacDonald. As usual there was a five-man midfield, its initial composition being Andy Welsh, Anthony Lewis and Mike Nawrocki flanked by Jerome Galy (l) and Andy Parsons (r), while Chris McNally spent the first half as the lone forward and actually made a decent fist of it.
The early stages of the game were blessed with some “silky touches” from the Captain, but while it would probably be wise to take his words – for that’s what they were – with a pinch of salt it was nonetheless indisputable that he did score the opening goal. Maybe ten minutes had elapsed when one of the Quarry Bank players caused his own ‘keeper unnecessary disquiet with a less-than-ideal back pass, and facing into a wind blowing the length of the pitch that had already been causing his team mates problems the #1 ‘cleared’ the ball straight to McNally, who ran on and slotted the thing into the net.
Taking full advantage of the fact that he’d given up dressage for the week the Mancunian then turned provider, setting up Lewis to score the visitors’ second with a delicately-placed dab past the opposition #1. Barely a quarter of the game had been played and it was already Convocation’s to throw away – ah, the club’s forte!
In fairness they did wait five-or-so minutes before entertaining concepts of self-destruction. On the whole they defended pretty well throughout the match and, with hindsight, it is rather puzzling how they had to rely on Kent’s sleight-of-forehead to pull off the victory. Riley in the nets never really came to terms with the wind behind him in the opening forty-five minutes and regularly punted the ball the full length of the pitch from out of his hands, but the outfield players appeared perfectly at ease with it, and their opponents: Welsh (J) and Byatt always seemed in control of proceedings, the latter more than making up for last week’s ‘look away now’ performance, and though MacDonald and Lloyd have had shaky moments in the not-too-distant past on Saturday they were competent and composed. Nevertheless Quarry Bank pulled a goal back just after the half-hour mark when one of their players slipped through the Convo offside trap and slotted low into the net.
Despite that the hosts continued to come across as a team that didn’t seem entirely happy with their lot, and their #5 in particular looked to be picking fights with anyone in grey, whether they were on the pitch or not. Minding his own business on the sideline didn’t prevent Graham Roberts from stirring special ire in the guy, and towards the end of the half the substitute was the recipient of repeated enquiries about his origins, the purpose of which was presumably so that he could be told he sounded ‘like a proper wool’ (as opposed to his interrogator, who was just behaving like a proper tool).
Perhaps it was their insistence on being gits that caused The Dali Lama That Got Away and his chums to switch off at the end of the half, but whatever the reason Convo had two great chances to increase their lead, neither of which they took. Welsh (A) curled a free kick on the edge of the Quarry Bank area just over their bar with minutes remaining, while moments after that Galy got free down the left but blasted his shot across the face of the target from about twelve yards wide of it, all of which meant that at the interval somehow the visitors only led by the odd goal in three.
McNally was hooked for the restart, subbed (by his VC) because his fine performance was threatening to open up a fissure in the space-time continuum – well at least he’s got it out of his system for another decade – although things started to go downhill for him almost immediately when he was refused permission to use a wicker armchair belonging to Mexoc that, admittedly, did look like it had been dumped in the thin corridor of land between their pitch and Convo’s (still, what did he expect?). He was replaced by Taha Abussnena, who almost scored within a couple of minutes of his entrance when he ran clear of the Quarry Bank back line onto a lovely pass from midfield, but fired his subsequent shot into their side netting. Parsons – who’d had a decent enough first period but would enjoy an excellent second one – went just as close not long after that when he too was sent through on the home side’s goal, although his attempt to lob the onrushing ‘keeper from thirty yards out dropped just the wrong side of the crossbar.
But then, just as it seemed that the visitors were upping the tempo to their advantage once again, they only went and conceded a daft equaliser. A Riley goal kick held up in the approaching wind and was headed back in the direction of the Convo goal from the edge of the centre circle, whereupon a Quarry Bank player was given the benefit of the doubt at an offside call that was tighter than Jan Molby’s shorts in the 1980s and lobbed the #1 as he tried to close him down, getting the bonus that had eluded Parsons a little earlier with the ball dropping into the net. Back down the pitch Welsh (A) was furious at the official for his part in the build-up (and in particular not blowing for offside), but really the protestations spoke volumes about his frustration at the back line’s inability to defend, because the visitors were the architects of their own undoing.
Their immediate(ish) response was to make more substitutions, junking Lloyd for Kent – who’d spent the game up until then encouraging his daughter (?) to run the Convo line – with Galy going to right back, and then several minutes later the exotic Roberts was sent on to replace MacDonald. Although the League has permitted rolling subs this season the Wyncote side haven’t appeared keen on utilising the practice, so none of the departing players expected to return; as it happened they wouldn’t need to due to one of those latecomers gearing up to work some magic.
Despite having pulled themselves level the home side continued with their scorched earth approach towards amicability, but it was Abussnena who (slightly) lost the plot with about a quarter-of-an-hour remaining when he was played through the middle of the Quarry Bank rearguard but prevented from steaming away by an opponent dragging him back by the shirt (the official didn’t notice as he was off-sighted). The miscreant’s actions ultimately caused him to fall awkwardly and ‘injure himself’, and while he lay on the ground performing the dying swan routine (no sense of guilt there then) the Convo man gave the lad in black a few choice words to think about. He cheered up several minutes later though, when Lewis ran onto another lovely pass through (what was posing as) the opposition defence and squared the ball to him from just inside the penalty area, and though the forward had no chance of controlling the thing when he stuck out his leg, he gave it just enough of a cushion to redirect it into the opposition net via the furthest post.
He should really have made sure of the points shortly after that when once again he was played clear though the hosts’ last line, but their ‘keeper did well to fly out of his goal and get a touch to the subsequent shot, although even then it looked as though the Convo man might have done enough as the resultant deflection bobbled slowly towards the line. At the last second the ball was scrambled away by a defender, although as a clearance it wasn’t up to much as it set up Parsons, galloping into the area right on cue, with a golden opportunity – unfortunately for him and his side he blasted his effort wide of the target when with a bit more composure he would surely have scored.
And so, with the wind really getting up as it blew towards the goal Convo were defending, the scene was set for Big Ol’ Mike Kent’s cephalic legerdemain and the yellow-shirted bedlam that followed. As that renowned commentator Tim Jago once put it (admittedly about a different team): it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of cunts.
So Convocation have their first league victory of the season, even though they made hard work of being so much better than the opposition. They’ve had two tough opponents in their opening three games and there should be no shame in taking only one point from nine, but now after this result against a very average Quarry Bank side (who have somehow done reasonably well during their start to the campaign) there’s no reason why they can’t kick on over the coming weeks and harvest some more. It was the very definition of ‘a cheeky little win’ though.
Man Of The Match: Everyone played well, but Parsons was surely the best. He was excellent on his raids down the flank, tracked back diligently whenever required to, and (particularly in the second half) was integral to almost all of Convo’s best moves and goal-scoring chances; it’s a travesty that he didn’t score. He also gets bonus marks for the efforts he had to put in to not blowing away.
Convocation (4-5-1): Riley; Lloyd (Kent), Byatt, Welsh J, MacDonald (Roberts G); Galy, Welsh A, Lewis, Nawrocki, Parsons; McNally (Abussnena)
Bobby Mimms reports
Oh Mike Nawrocki, ye of false dawns, you gave us hope and then it was snatched away, not once, but twice. First it was your last-gasp equaliser against old foes Collegiate, seven days ago, which hinted that perhaps Convo could go on and win when the two teams met again. But then when they did, on Saturday, and at 4-0 down won a penalty, a chance to get back into a game thought lost, you put all the weight of a sparrow behind your kick and their ‘keeper saved easily. Why’d ya do it to us Mike? Why’d ya do it?
All joking aside, and also with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been highly unlikely that Convo could have rescued anything from the match even if Nawrocki’s twelve-yard attempt hadn’t been the worst ever hit by man or beast. There was plenty of time – the penalty had been awarded a good five minutes before the interval – but the visitors to the Shankly Ground (replete with its new clubhouse) were being outplayed by their hosts and were well on the way to a defeat secured with some very conventional Convocation defending. They’d been four adrift since a ruthless Collegiate purple patch just before the midpoint of the half, and though the final two goals weren’t conceded until the arse-end of the game they just didn’t seem to have any interest in getting back into it in between.
What makes their performance all the more galling was that they’d held their own when the two teams had met at Wyncote last Saturday. That game had been hastily arranged after Sacre Coeur dropped out of the league, cocking up everyone’s fixtures, so the expected grudge match – inflamed by Convo’s allegations of racist abuse aimed at Adel Ahmed last season (and since dismissed by the County F.A.) – was suddenly a double header, and seven days earlier than expected, to boot. As it turned out neither encounter was particularly fractious, with both sides understandably on their best behaviour, but after last week’s heroics Convocation must have thought that Collegiate would be there for the taking when they faced off again.
Unfortunately, like shark-infested custard they would actually prove to be yellow and dangerous, and it would only take them five minutes to begin exacting the revenge on their guests that they undoubtedly believed they were entitled to. Despite playing up the pitch’s slight incline and into the wind blowing its length they found it far too easy to get behind the Convo defence – not the most challenging of tasks it would turn out – and then drive a low cross through the box from one of the flanks for another of their players to side-foot the ball into the net at the furthest post.
Obviously no one was to know then that that was effectively job done due the imminent comedy stylings of the Convocation rearguard, so Collegiate still had to work a little longer to ensure their win. How differently the game would have panned out had the visitors found an equaliser before their opponents ran riot is a question for the ages (well, until next week), but in the following few minutes Jerome Galy almost did just that when he fired off a shot from twenty-five yards out that the opposition ‘keeper did very well to tip onto an upright; that the left-back was in a position to try his luck from twenty-five yards out says a lot about what happened next.
The Frenchman was joined in the back line by the Dolly and Daisy of the Convo First Team, Liam Byatt and Graham Roberts, while on the right side and nursing a sore head entirely of his own making was John Farrell; between the four of them, and with a little help from a supporting cast of the midfield, they went on over the following ten minutes (and maybe not even that long) to put in a performance of defending so poor that it would be an insult to the playground to call it ‘schoolboy’. Their self-inflicted debacle began with a lucky escape, as a ball through the middle of the high back line left two Collegiate players bearing down on Chris McNally and no one in pursuit, but as the ‘keeper advanced the one in possession passed the orb to his mate and he, with the goal gaping, somehow put a totally unnecessary lob over the bar from about fifteen yards out.
After that there followed two successful hits in a minute. A corner was crossed in to the edge of the Convocation six-yard box where a Collegiate head flicked it out towards the boundary of the penalty area and a second yellow shirt hit a low volley back through a throng of players and into the net, McNally possibly being off-sighted. Almost immediately from the restart the visitors squandered possession allowing their adversaries to attack down the left flank, but finding the Convo defenders wandering around like extras from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video the man on the ball was able to ghost into the box and blam a shot across the goal and into it off the back post.
The visitors did manage to keep the ball out of their nets for a few minutes after that, but Collegiate still had two good chances to add to their burgeoning tally. They advanced down their right flank next and floated a cross into the Convo box that was just too high for Byatt’s can-canning, but its recipient could only drag his effort across the face of the target; shortly after that McNally was called upon to push a snap shot that appeared to be heading towards the top corner of his goal around one of the uprights.
The Captain would be one of the few Convocation players to come out of the match in a good light, but there was nothing he could do a couple of minutes later when the home side pumped a ball into his area and one of their players was given enough time and space to have erected a marquee, before shooting across the goal and finding its postage-stamp spot. Four-nil, and barely a quarter of the game had elapsed – somewhere on the wind Roy Castle’s ashes began resonating to the frequencies of Dedication.
But while the visitors’ defence may have been having an afternoon to forget the main problem was that all the trouble was originating in midfield, where its inhabitants were being overrun as much as their deeper colleagues. Andy Parsons (l) and Mike Kent (r) on the flanks were offering scant protection to the full backs behind them, and in between Jonny and Andy Welsh along with Nawrocki were just being outplayed. For the latter of that trio infamy was at the gate fiddling for change to pay its taxi, but before it properly arrived he hoofed a shot from the edge of the Collegiate ‘D’ just over their crossbar – a chance not to be sniffed at in the climate of the time – and then rather kindly initiated a movement for the home side that could have led to another concession.
He punted a free kick on the halfway line towards their penalty area, but it was easily headed clear and they broke at pace along their left. With Farrell stumbling around like a Saturday night drunk – or even a Friday night drunk on a Saturday afternoon – the player with the ball easily manoeuvred past him but then delivered a poor cross into the box that its eventual recipient shielded out towards the far corner flag with McNally in congaing pursuit (all that was missing was a spot of Yakety Sax). Just as the yellow shirt looked to be trapped he swivelled back suddenly past the horrendously out-of-position ‘keeper and curled a shot on target, but was denied a goal by Welsh (J) who had got back to head clear off the line.
That may all have been great fun, but for Convo what happened next wasn’t. The right-winger Kent attacked down the left (work that out) and from near the byline bundled his way into the penalty area where, with opponents scared to put in a challenge, he was able to pull the ball back to lone forward Taha Abussnena, who was about fifteen yards from goal. A Collegiate player approached to confront him, but for reasons that your correspondent fails to recall he simply dived on the ball as though scoring a rugby try, (deliberately) trapping the thing between his arm and torso. Referee Tony Mallon – who as usual had his collar up, giving him the allusion of having no neck – had no hesitation in pointing to the spot, and while he then gossiped with nearby players Nawrocki paid his tribute to toddler kick-abouts, allowing the ‘keeper to save. The botch was especially galling to Galy, who’d had a pre-match gentlemen’s wager with Simon Crockett (on the sidelines, enjoying the sunshine, with Paul Owen-Browne and Sam Prendergast) that Farrell would score at some point during the game, a bet that reminded your correspondent of the old axiom about never seeing a skint bookie.
It was back to the Convo Amusement Arcade at the other end of the pitch after that, where on days like Saturday the slot machines are always ready to pay out for the opposition. In possession, the Collegiate left winger (who appeared to be called Beyoncé) ran at the defence and yet again their reactions left a lot to be desired, and as McNally then advanced behind them the guy in question rounded him but, with the goal gaping, fired a shot into the side netting. Moments later the #1 was called into action once more after one of the home players had turned Byatt in the middle of the Convo half and ran on; he saved the subsequent shot with an outstretched leg and then watched in relief as Welsh (J) hooked the loose ball out for a corner as it dribbled towards the yawning goal.
With the interval approaching the visitors had their best spell of the game – although ‘spell’ is probably too strong a word – when both Abussnena and Parsons had chances to pull a goal back. The latter should have scored with what was the last kick of the half when he took advantage of the chaos caused in the Collegiate penalty area by a long Galy throw, but could only sky his effort from fifteen yards out. Moments earlier his colleague had demonstrated the benefits of never giving up when he chased a Nawrocki punt into the box that had looked way too long, yet somehow managed to hook a shot on target from practically the byline, striking the opposition ‘keeper on the back with the ball (as he was in the process of complaining that it had gone out) before a defender cleared it to safety.
It sounded as if the local branch of the Hell’s Angels rode past during half time, while a bizarre fusion of The Birds and Last of the Summer Wine seemed to be being enacted on the Collegiate touchline, as every time you looked across more and more elderly chaps had appeared from apparently nowhere. On the Convo side of the pitch it was decided that Roberts and Welsh (J) should swap positions, but as the latter had been clearing up the defence’s messes for the majority of the previous forty-five minutes the change did seem a little redundant.
There wasn’t quite as much thud and blunder from the grey-shirted visitors in the second half as they’d clearly decided to proceed with a damage limitation approach, although they remained only ever one catastrophic bit of defending away from conceding again until the final whistle. In fairness, there was a touch of the calm after the storm about the third quarter of the game, with nothing to threaten the scoreboard but a woeful Kent shot that headed for the corner flag (Liverpool County FA Premier League corner flags, no less), and an excellent double save from McNally at a one-on-one, after Byatt had air-kicked an attempted interception.
At one point Farrell became involved in a spot of handbags with the Collegiate #8 over… well, answers on a postcard, but otherwise the visitors definitely looked more composed and capable than they had before the break, which admittedly shouldn’t have been difficult welshandrobertshadswappedremember. The club secretary was banished to the bench shortly after the hour mark, with Ewan MacDonald and his special style of anarchic defending taking his place, while several minutes after that the curtain was brought down on Andy Welsh’s quiet game, Martin Lloyd replacing him.
There’d been a reasonable breeze blowing during the game from behind the goal that Convo had defended in the first period and everybody kept over-hitting passes in the same direction, something that the hosts couldn’t get their heads around after the break thus contributing further to the increase in fractured play; the goalkeepers were particularly guilty of this, in their respective turns at that end, regularly hoofing the ball the full length of the pitch whenever they kicked it out of their hands. Somewhat unnecessarily the Collegiate #1 also seemed to be timewasting, a ploy he’d started after half-an-hour even though his side were four up, although when Kent played Abussnena clear through with a little under a quarter of the game remaining (having skilfully turned his man near the centre circle), only for the forward to wastefully blast his shot into the side netting, you could see why the glover remained edgy.
With the final ten minutes approaching the home side finally awoke from their second-half slumber and upped their efforts to a level more consistent with what they’d done before the break. They sounded a warning as such when they went close at a corner after MacDonald had half cleared the initial punt into the box but then missed an immediate return ball, allowing one of the Collegiate players to slip through the back line but drag a poor effort across the face of the Convo goal.
There was no reprieve for the visitors several minutes later though, when their hosts played the ball down the middle of the pitch from their own half, numerous chances to clear the danger were wasted or spurned, and a man in yellow wriggled through the tissue-paper barricades of the Convo rearguard and spanked a shot past McNally from fifteen yards out. On the Collegiate sideline their celebrations were both a little over the top considering that the goal made it five-nil, but also understandable as they’d been frustrated by their guests’ second-half stubbornness, although either way with the echoes of their applause bouncing off the nearby houses it did sound as though there was several hundred people in attendance (incidentally, the official spent the whole game clapping and cajoling players of both sides).
Luckily for the visitors there wasn’t long left because that concession quite clearly knocked the gusto out of them, and had there been more than just a handful of minutes to play things could have got ugly. As it was there was enough purgatory remaining for the home side to net a sixth, and yet again it was a kick in the teeth for the hard defensive graft that Convo had put in during the majority of the second period: Welsh (J) made an interception twenty-five yards from his own goal but when he refused to pass to the nearby, unmarked MacDonald Lady Karma came out to play and he was dispossessed by an opponent, who then knocked the ball square to a team mate and he ran on, rounded McNally and rolled the thing into the empty net.
Even then there was still time for Convo to nearly snatch a consolation goal when Nawrocki was gifted the ball inside the Collegiate penalty area, but alas the midfielder appeared to be under the impression that the goal had the same dimensions as an aircraft hangar door and fired his shot way over the bar. When full time was called less than sixty seconds later it coincided with the nearby St James’ church announcing that it was four o’clock – no one in grey asked for whom the bell was tolling…
In the end this game turned out to be part ‘bad day at the office’, part anti-climax for Convocation, as all the determination of last week seemed to have evaporated in the interim. Perhaps they needed the ‘grudge’ status to have been able to perform so well against opposition who already look like they could be troubling the trophy engravers come May, because once it was gone they didn’t seem to be at the races; on Saturday Collegiate were in your face from the first whistle, but their guests were little more than a lack of communication.
Next up it’s Quarry Bank, who like Collegiate have also had a good start to the season – at least there shouldn’t be any Nawrocki-induced false hope for that one.
Man Of The Match: There wasn’t much that Abussnena did wrong up front, while Welsh (J) had a reasonable game but loses marks for refusing to pass to MacDonald in the build-up to the final goal – we don’t want any of that in the First Team, thank you very much. None of the other outfield players deserve a mention, so despite conceding six McNally gets the gong – he was at times excellent comedy value but also made some fines saves, without which it could have been so much grizzlier for his side.
Convocation (4-5-1): McNally; Galy, Byatt, Roberts G, Farrell (MacDonald); Parsons, Welsh J, Welsh A (Lloyd), Nawrocki, Kent; Abussnena
Convocation (4-5-1): McNally; Parsons, Byatt, Roberts G, Farrell; O'Sullivan, Welsh J, Welsh A, Nawrocki, Kent; Lewis
Convocation (4-2-3-1): Hendry; Parsons, Byatt, Roberts G, Farrell; Houston, Kent; Abussnena, Lewis, Galy; McNally; Subs: Round, O'Sullivan
Having been 2-0 and 3-1 up, Convo held on through a nervy final ten minutes to claim the South Liverpool Cup on goal difference from Alumni. A trophy was unavailable for comment.
Convocation (4-5-1): McNally; Parsons, Byatt, Majer, Farrell; Abussnena, Roberts T, Kent, Nawrocki, Welsh; Lewis; Subs: Hendry, Lloyd
Convocation (from): McNally, Parsons, Roberts G, Byatt, Farrell, Abussnena, Welsh, Nawrocki, Kent, De Buffalo, Lewis, Majer, Salgado, MacDonald
Convocation (4-4-2): Abussnena; Farrell, Sayer, Madeloso, MacDonald; Lewis, Owen-Browne, Kent, Schofield R; Salgado, 'Alex'; Sub: 'Paul'
Bobby Mimms reports
Well! Hands up those who expected that to be so easy? (Put them down liars.) Cardinal Newman have never been world beaters but they aren’t usually so crap either; on Tuesday they were abject and you did have to wonder whether Andy Welsh was being sardonic when, having only just turned up before the interval, he asked “who is this?” Well, quite. Even when there is some sort of Arsenal-flavoured Mickey Mouse trophy at stake pre-season fixtures are meant to be grinds to allow players to get back to (relative) fitness, not (relative) walks in the park, and while Convo did play well on Tuesday they never really had to get out of second gear. There were several areas in which they were better than their opponents, but mainly it was the big green one they’d played on.
It was a lovely evening for a game and even before such a comfortable victory there was a relaxed air within the Convocation camp, and a carefree mood in general that seemed capable of making spectators kick back on the sidelines and shotgun some booze as they watched. At the end of what had been a balmy day in the region the sun was still shining brightly across the Mersey Road pitches where all the South Liverpool Cup matches are being held, but there was a slight breeze blowing in off the river to cool an athlete’s brow and alleviate any stewing in the stands; on the adjacent pitch to the one Convo and Cardinal Newman were playing on the scene-stealing sideshow that is Phil Webster was refereeing Alumni’s eventual win over Liobians. Who could ask for more?
It was fitting that on the occasion of such unexpected gratification Convo experimented with a snazzy-looking 4-2-3-1 formation, with real defensive and attacking midfielders and all. Those entrusted at the start with all the hard work associated with a double-tiered engine room were Mike Nawrocki and Andy Parsons (or ‘Parsnip’ as the still-injured Simon Crockett insisted on calling him) in front of the back line, and Taha Abussnena, Breno Salgado and Mike Kent pushing on to assist lone-striker Anthony Lewis. Those who would be left to pick up the pieces if the tactic went tits-up were John Farrell at left back, Ewan MacDonald on the right, and Jon Welsh and Captain Chris McNally in between. With only twelve of the eventual fifteen players present at kick off Luke Riley returned to the nets while debutant Dale Majer started on the bench.
There were early signs that Cardinal Newman weren’t going to be much cop, none more than the lay-out and positioning of their defence, which was all over the place from the start, particularly the full backs who appeared to be especially prone to a spot of lax wanderlust. At the other end of the pitch one of their forwards (#2) was playing as though he’d never heard of the concept of offside and kept getting pulled up whenever he made a dart towards the Convo goal, although on numerous other occasions it seemed as though the referee – the usually impressive Kev Jones – wasn’t too sure how it worked either.
On the quarter-hour mark the first of Cardinal Newman’s chickens came home to roost when Abussnena slipped easily away from the inattentive opponents on his side of the midfield, ghosted past their hapless right back and drilled a low cross into the goalmouth from within a few yards of the byline. In the middle Salgado – apparently still on a high after having been made at the AGM – attempted some sort of ludicrous la-di-da back-heel on the edge of the six-yard box, but when that inevitably didn’t come off the subsequent loose ball fell to Lewis in acres of space and he belted it into the back of the opposition net with the minimum of fuss.
Salgado attempted a much more sensible shot not long after that, having been allowed to dribble through the heart of the home side’s defence all too easily, but his final touch was just as pitiful as the earlier dud and he scuffed his effort well wide of the mark. On a rare foray into Convo’s third of the pitch one of the Cardinal Newman players showed the Brazilian how it is possible to get the ball on target when he curled a free kick around a defensive wall on the edge of the area and it looked to be heading for the bottom corner of the nets, but Riley got down well to his left to push the thing out around the upright despite having caused some consternation on the sidelines by leaving that half of the goal exposed (“where the hell’s he standing?”) – what do they (we) know?
In what was probably the closest they came to a purple patch during the game, the home side then had another chance to get on the scoresheet when one of their players lumped a hopeful pass forward into the Convo penalty area, McNally missed intercepting it and a second maroon-shirted man ran through but shot well wide (possibly using his shin). It would come back to haunt him and his colleagues several minutes before the interval, as the visitors doubled their lead with a quite excellent goal. The ball was punted into the Cardinal Newman final third and from the eighteen-yard line one of their dilly-dallying centre halves headed a hesitant clearance out wide where, on the run, Kent floated a deep cross to the far side of the box for Abussnena, who arrived on cue and whacked a flying volley between the sticks.
Paul Owen-Browne, Alex Hendry and Welsh (A) all turned up just before the break, and all went straight into the eleven that started the second half, with the former partnering Majer (who’d come on for Farrell – Parsons moved to left back) in front of the back four, the latter replacing McNally in the back four, and the goalkeeper relieving Riley of his duties in… well, goal. The new glover really didn’t have much to do during his forty-five minutes on the pitch and at one point was spotted partaking a touch of cloud watching during one of several lulls that blighted the game after the break (it turned out he had noticed some balloons high in the sky); on the sideline everyone just turned to see what Webster was up to. The #1 was forced into making a sort of save not long after he’d come on, and at about the same time a Cardinal Newman player had a similar chance to that with which Abussnena had scored, but failed miserably. Otherwise the home side didn’t look at all interested in staging a fight back.
Even if they had though, they conceded a third a minute-or-two after Convo made their final substitutions, at which point the game was effectively over. Farrell, Riley and Nawrocki had all returned in straight swaps for MacDonald, Abussnena and Salgado (even elevation to the committee doesn’t guarantee you a full game) respectively, and it was the erstwhile goalkeeper who almost scored (he’d re-entered the arena promising to net a hat trick) when he ran in onto a low cross into the box and fired off a shot that the Cardinal Newman #1 did well to block. Unfortunately for the home side, who seemed determined to redefine the term ‘faffing’, the ball rebounded to an unmarked Nawrocki and from six or seven yards out he stabbed it home.
Convocation should really have made it four-nil when Lewis chased a long ball forward and hooked it past the home side’s ‘keeper as he advanced, but before the thing could cross the goal line it was cleared for a corner by a defender. And who was it that did the honours? Why, none other than that old footballing mercenary, Shaun Williams, who seems to play against Convo for half-a-dozen different teams every season, most recently for Mossley Hill Vets – he’ll be playing for Alumni next week no doubt.
So what to make of that (the performance, not Shaun Williams whoring himself around every club in south Liverpool)? Well there’s no doubt that Cardinal Newman were poor and made life easy for Convo, but that is the third (admittedly, friendly) game on the run that the Wyncote side have netted three, and while there’s no way that such goal-scoring business will ever catch on within the club, if they don’t lose next week then there’s every chance that they could win this Arsenal-flavoured tournament. It’s difficult to know whether their tactics were actually effective, again because of the inadequacy of the opposition, so we are left wondering whether playing two tiers in midfield might be the future – experience suggests that the answer is ‘no’ as they’ll never be disciplined enough, but for now their version of it might suffice for the South Liverpool Cup.
Man Of The Match: No one really stood out so the nod goes to Abussnena. Even if he did nothing else all game his goal deserves it.
Convocation (4-2-3-1): Riley; Farrell, Welsh J, McNally, MacDonald; Nawrocki, Parsons; Abussnena, Salgado, Kent; Lewis; Subs: Majer, Welsh A, Hendry, Owen-Browne
Convocation (4-5-1): 'Zack'; Owen-Browne, Byatt, Roberts G, Farrell; Abussnena, Welsh, Kent, Nawrocki, Lewis; Williams; Subs: Salgado, McNally, 'Martin'
Bobby Mimms reports
Ten years (and a bit) on from the ‘Gerrard final’, Convocation staged an anniversary tribute on Sunday that was eerily similar to the 2006 FA Cup showpiece, as the boys from Wyncote got their latest campaign off to an early start on the slopes of Mossley Hill. Just as Liverpool had a decade ago, they initially led in the match before having their advantage completely overturned, and then required a last-gasp thunderbolt from their midfield ratter – who, one atrociously inept moment aside, played rather well – to save the day. Perhaps if there’d been a penalty shoot-out after the final whistle Convo would have edged the tie, continuing the similarities, but then again their recent record in such undertakings has hardly been stellar.
There was no need for such ‘undertakings’ to settle anything though, as the fixture was just a friendly, although the definition of that term is one that the Mossley Hill players might want to refresh themselves with. They were a load of old hands and journeymen skilled in the dark arts of cynical football – or snides, as some might call them – and some of the challenges they put in in the first period had nothing to do with ‘friendliness’. Well inside the opening ten minutes Sam Prendergast suffered some sort of ankle misadventure during a tussle with one of them and, having limped off, seemed convinced that he wouldn’t be wearing a pair of footy boots again any time in the foreseeable future, while Mike Kent took a fair old whack just before the interval that required an early break on the sideline to overcome (fortunately for Convo the official was allowing rolling subs). But by far the worst of the assaults was a horrible studs-up lunge inflicted on Johnny Welsh’s knee in the centre circle, which had echoes of Nigel De Jong’s attack on Xabi Alonso’s guts, only lower and with a lot more malice; seriously, it did have more than a whiff of intent about it and would easily have warranted a red card in a competitive match.
Under such circumstances those on the Convo bench joked about setting up a field hospital beside the pitch, but irrespective of the butchery going on the subs and spectators could have done with some sort of shelter because standing idle in the blazing sun was quite uncomfortable and the conditions in general were certainly not ideal for playing football (mercifully there was a slight breeze). Still, these are the pre-season crosses teams bear to get into shape and learn about themselves, and from the visitors’ point of view they should be relatively pleased with what they will have seen: they played as though the summer’s done them no harm, looked reasonably well organised, and coped with the upheaval of regular positional alterations with the minimum of fuss.
It helped of course that, strangely for a pre-season friendly, there wasn’t a phalanx of debutants and most participants were regulars last season; of the two that weren’t, Andy Welsh still played once or twice (your correspondent can’t be bothered checking) while Liam Doyle made an appearance at the AGM game; both started this one as substitutes. As has become the norm, Convo lined up in a 4-5-1 formation and, with Prendergast ‘retired’, it saw Ewan MacDonald, Liam Byatt, Chris McNally and John Farrell in defence, Welsh (J), Kent, Taha Abussnena, Graham Roberts and Simon Williams in midfield, and last season’s top scorer Anthony Lewis leading the line. In goal and once again looking as though he were donning plus fours was Luke Riley, who put in a decent shift and made several good blocks during instances when his team mates appeared to be wobbling.
At the other end of the pitch the Mossley Hill #1 (who seemed to be playing in a florescent green training bib) was also quick to help out whenever his defence were caught short (the full backs especially looked a bit ropey) and regularly slid out to smother or intercept menacing probes, which was a tad inadvisable on such a dry pitch, leading as it so often does to chafed buttocks. There was little he’d been able to do in the opening minutes of the game though, when he had to advance after a great spot of Convo tiki-taka opened the home side up, and a pass across the edge of the six-yard box left him for dead, setting up Kent with an unmissable target – unfortunately, with the goal at his mercy, the diminutive midfielder showed it mercy, and the ball did not end up in the back of the net.
It was only a temporary reprieve for the home side, and shortly after the midpoint of the half Convo did indeed take the lead. A cross-field punt into the Mossley Hill penalty area landed ideally for Abussnena, and having taken a touch to get the thing under control while the opposition back line faffed around he struck a thunderbolt of a rising shot past the #1 from a little over twelve yards out; it was just as well that there was a net on the goal as otherwise the ball might well now be in orbit around the planet.
The silver-shirted visitors continued to press and certainly weren’t intimidated by their over-physical opponents (which was probably the intention of the rough-housing), but nonetheless the tie was all square at the interval. Understandably against opposition whose average age was easily ten years older than theirs, the Convo back line chose to defend quite high up the pitch, but when a long ball was launched over the top of them one of the younger Mossley Hill players slipped through the offside trap, ran on, and then fired a low shot past Riley.
Apart from the four goals that were scored, the balls were the main talking point of the second period, as a large number of the players (most of them in maroon) took a leaf out of Goldilocks’ book and continually objected to whichever one was being used: ‘this one’s too soft’, ‘this one’s too hard’, ‘this one’s too light’, ‘this one’s too round’. There were also numerous occasions when the things were emptied downhill into the expanses of Holt Field, which contributed to the moaning as no one was prepared to wait for them to be returned by any of the numerous small children on the Convo sideline (the one closest to the gradient), so they kept having to be rotated (pardon the pun) every few minutes.
Despite the regular complaints though, both sides looked to be coping with whichever orb was being used, although for the majority of the half it seemed as though only Mossley Hill was going to be able to get them into the nets. They scored a second about ten minutes after the restart when, similarly to Convo’s opener, they knocked a long cross-field ball into the area, it wasn’t defended with any great resolve, and the old onion bag ended up a-bulging. Before long they had a third after more slack marking led to one of their players being able to fire off a rasper of a shot from about twelve yards out that looked as though it may have slipped between Riley’s legs.
Briefly it felt as though Convocation might be about to get a bit of a bashing, but with the conditions resulting in more and more substitutions being made, on both sides (Matt Round, who’d only turned up to watch, managed to scav a run-out for Mossley Hill), proceedings became increasingly fractured and they ultimately weathered the (mild) storm. And as the game entered its home stretch it was clear to see that the more senescent hosts were fading as though they’d been drinking Brazilian tap water.
What made matters worse for their creaking old bones was that Convo didn’t try to protect their deficit – how very peculiar – and actually made an attempt to salvage something from the encounter. Kent should have done better when, at a stramash in the Mossley Hill penalty area, he suddenly found the loose ball coming his way on the edge of the six-yard box, but (once again) when it looked easier to score he fluffed his lines and scuffed an effort with his shin, his ‘shot’ practically trickling against the foot of the furthest upright, from where it was cleared to safety by a defender.
Lewis showed his team mate how it should be done, five minutes from the end, when he got himself in the right place at the right time to stab the ball past the Mossley Hill ‘keeper and give his side some hope. And lessons learned, and then some, Kent blasted a thirty-yard rocket of a shot into the back of the net in the dying seconds after a Convo corner had only been half cleared by one of the home side’s flagging players.
So three-all was a fair result considering that Convocation had the legs while their grizzled opponents relied on more devious methods to get by, and for the Wyncote team the performance boded well for the season to come. On the sideline Vice-captain Simon Crockett seemed to agree seeing as how he spent the entire game scribbling notes in a ledger, but rather than tactical analysis for future reference, as Snr Benitez would have done a decade ago, his was just a list of players. Or a casualty list, as it could otherwise have been called on Sunday.
Man Of The Match: He missed an open goal and wasted another great chance, which defied belief, but as well as his last-ditch equaliser Kent was full of industry and ideas all game (well, for as long as he was on the pitch), so in future it shall be referred to as ‘The Kent Friendly’.
Convocation (4-5-1): Riley; Byatt, Prendergast, McNally, Farrell; MacDonald, Abussnena, Kent, Roberts G, Williams; Lewis; Subs: Welsh J, Welsh A, Doyle
