Meadhurst Vets vs NPL

 Sunday 18^th September 2005 Home

Won 2 - 0  (HT 1-0) 

NPL were struggling for players with 9 available at kick off and one arriving late but an injury to the NPL keeper early on reduced them to 9 men again. Dene and Jack filled in for NPL. Ken had planned to have a heart bypass operation on Sunday but the op was cancelled so Ken refereed. It being football he still got his fair share of helpful advice although there was some sympathy when he mentioned that he felt a little light headed at the end of the game. This dissipated when NPL realised that he had gone off with the valuables bag including not only wallets but also the car keys.

 Not much of a mention for the football I hear you say – in truth it wasn’t memorable.

NPL kept trying to play and in patches did quite well, keeping their shape and putting Meadhurst under pressure at times with some penetrating passes. However they were too disorganised to mount a sustained threat. For example Jack had to take over the NPL half time team talk when they proved unable to decide what to about the the fact that they were playing with two left midfielders but no one on the right. Meadhurst were better. Nipper scored a couple (the second courtesy of Jack’s defensive error) and Adrian should have had a hat trick but most of the play was straight down the middle and failed to stretch NPL. We will have to play much better against Old Actonians and British Airways.

 On the plus side everyone got some much-needed playing time (rather too much for Fred Riddiford and John Lovegrove I suspect) and this will no doubt help in the games to come.

Meadhurst Vets at Home vs NPL 2004

 Won 6-0

 After last week’s disappointing showing a full squad set about NPL with some enthusiasm. NPL can be threatening going forward but are error prone at the back and Meadhurst went one up when Don White’s low cross was diverted past the keeper by a defender. Don’s attempts to claim the goal were dismissed on the grounds that without the deflection Jack’s (dead) granny would have saved it. A mistake as it turned out as Don added two more in the first half before running out of steam and would have been down for a jug. 

Dave Ferguson scored (naturally) and indeed should have had a hat-trick too but probably had too much time as NPL lost shape and cohesion. Dick and Brian Smith added the other two goals.  

Match Report 2003/4

The terrible pitch looked most likely to win as both teams started slowly.  Maybe the absence of Cuzzy's encouraging advice made Meadurst a bit complacent (Cuzzy's has used up all his sick leave for the decade in one go). Anyway  Meadhurst had the measure of NPL in all departments and Colin Rendell had a quiet day in goal. Dene spurned a couple of chances that looked easier to score than miss but Dogga made no mistake when he nodded in an inviting cross from Dave Ferguson. Carl added a second before half time when a nice move finished with Dogga pulling one back to him just inside the box.

The senile manager thought we were 3-0 up at half time and gave a rather gentile team talk as a result. Dave Feguson added a real third goal from the penalty spot and Dene finally got on the score sheet by diverting Dogga's super cross into the net. 

A comfortable win but it will be harder in February at NPL

Match Report (2003/4)

Meadhurst Vets at home vs NPL; a 4-0 win

The terrible pitch looked most likely to win as both teams started slowly.  Maybe the absence of Cuzzy's encouraging advice made Meadurst a bit complacent. Anyway  Meadhurst had the measure of NPL in all departments and Colin Rendell had a quiet day in goal. Dene spurned a couple of chances that looked easier to score than miss but Dogga made no mistake when he nodded in an inviting cross from Dave Ferguson. Carl added a second before half time when a nice move finished with Dogga pulling one back to him just inside the box.

The senile manager thought we were 3-0 up at half time and gave a rather gentile team talk as a result. Dave Feguson added a real third goal from the penalty spot and Dene finally got on the score sheet by diverting Dogga's super cross into the net. 

A comfortable win but it will be harder in February at NPL

Match Report (2002/3)

Meadhurst Vets at home vs NPL; a 3-1 win

End of an era - Julian Harnor is retiring to take up golf. This was his last game (unless we are desperate). Julian has for the last few seasons made the right midfield spot his own and while he has not entirely forgiven my experiments with wing backs he has always  worked his socks off for the team. He has for years been both the oldest player on the Meadhurst team and in many ways the most valuable. Picking the midfield always seemed easy: Roy and Julian out wide to do the running and Gary to stand around in the centre circle. Sadly no longer.

Before the match I was speculating that Dene's shins were the most likely goal scoring option but silly me I hadn't counted on our friend og. It was fortunate that he turned up really as it wasn't entirely obvious at kick off that the line up could score 3 goals without some help.

Meadhurst started well enough encouraged by the news that NPL only had a stand in keeper. While the midfield took a while to settle to its job of controlling a less talented oppo than last week, the back line was into its stride quickly. With Keywood, Sage and Brockwell on duty there was plenty of play making from the back and Julian and Roy gave us some good outlets. However we struggled to keep the ball up front (Dene was our only regular forward) and despite a decent early spell we didn't give the stand in keeper much to do.

It dawned on NPL that despite their worse fears (in fact Dave Ferguson was absent on parent duty) they were still in the game and they grew in confidence. A period of modest pressure on the Meadhust goal led to a couple of corners and a mix up between keeper and defender gave the NPL forward a simple nod in from 2 yards. This woke Meadhurst up and without managing to create many clear-cut chances the team regained control. A Keywood cross was curling away from goal when the keeper flapped at it and pushed it into the net. Complaints that it had gone out of play were ignored by the ref (a real one - another coup for Cuzzy) and 10 minutes later a similar passage of play saw Dene pressurise the defence and one of the NPL defenders panicked and threw the ball into his own net. Curious, but anyway 2-1 to Meadhurst at half time.

The second half was really all Meadhurst - the most promising NPL forward picked up an injury and with Rob Sage replacing Jack in midfield Meadhurst were too strong in all departments except initially the final third. Full backs Fred Riddiford and Andy K pushed on, as did Dick Brockwell (this often left Mike Dixon, on for Cuzzy, the last man - he coped well) and hence Roy and Fozzie and later Julian were able to get forward. Huxley after a slow start (it was his first game) and Dene used the support well to get amongst the NPL back four and both Dene and Tony had chances - sadly they fell to the feet they use for standing on and didn't trouble the keeper.

Steve Harrison came up with an interesting idea after the game - boot sharing. After all not many Meadhurst players need their boots two weeks running and if a right footer shared with a left footer you could get decent amount of wear out on a set.

I digress: Meadhust continued to apply pressure and a fairy tale ending was averted when Julian failed to convert two decent chances. Eventually Jack had got bored with the sideline banter but couldn't in all fairness bring himself back on in midfield and decided to have a run up front (less damage). Not long after Meadhurst completed one of their better moves (Glen to Brockwell to Keywood to Huxley out left, inside to Roy, inside again to Jack who passed the ball into the net. 3-1 to Meadhurst and, more or less, game over.

A decent outing, nice to see Rob Sage, new boys Foster and Keywood did well and its with some sadness that Julian hangs up his boots. The good news; we had Barber and Beech as spectators and the legendary Steve Harrison in the bar. Steve has finally thrown away his boots and uses his boot bag as a clothes peg holder - a cautionary tale if ever there was one.

Meadhurst 4-4-2 Goals: og's (2) but Dene still claims one, Frost (1)

Glen Jones

Andy Keywood Richard Cozens (Mike Dixon) Dick Brockwell Rob Sage (Fred Riddiford)

Ian Foster (Julian Harnor) Jack Frost (Rob Sage) Mike Petch Roy Partington

Dene Winch (Jack Frost) Julian Harnor (Tony Huxley)

ORL 4-4-2

Match Report (2001)

Probably a fair result but certainly in the first half NPL posed us a number of problems and led 1-0, and 2-1.

Meadhurst started competently, stretching NPL over the whole field of play when we had the ball. It was a different story when NPL got possession however. Unlike last week, when the oppo’s midfield played 1-2’s through us, the NPL tactic was to for the midfield to hit early balls into the channels. Their forwards were expecting this and were running into the spaces ahead of the defense. Our midfield, not very intelligently, were still fighting last week’s war. Standing off, defending the quick 1-2 in theory but in practice just allowing the oppo time to hit good balls forward. NPL got their just reward by forcing defensive errors that led to goals. The first when the defensive wall let a free-kick straight through past our unsighted keeper. Unforgivable but the real error was conceding the free kick and the second when they seized on some defensive confusion and hit a fine 30 yard strike.

Nevertheless we continued to look dangerous when we had the ball and it came as no surprise (but some relief) to go in 3-2 up at half time.

The second half had Meadhurst correcting a few problems – the oppo midfield were given less space and the forward’s runs were better covered but try as we might no more goals came for quite a while. Just as we were getting a little nervous the 4^th goal went in - which more or less settled it. NPL’s heads dropped a little and Meadhurst relaxed, maybe too much defensively, but going forward we started putting chances away and ran out solid winners.

Memorable moments: Ian Bolter appearing in the vets changing room, Roy complaining that his calf was sore and wanting to come off - the manager refused, Roy finished with 4 goals to his name, Fred having to come off because his new boots hurt him, Dave F coming off because of a stiff calf (we are risking an investigation from the RSPCA with all this calf abuse), Tony asking to be substituted because he was having difficulty with his positioning, ball control and passing – the manager refused pointing out that if those became acceptable reasons for leaving the field we wouldn’t be able to keep 11 players on the park for more than 5 minutes into a game. Cuzzy twice complaining bitterly that we weren’t playing properly immediately after we had just scored – a hard man to impress.

Meadhurst 4-4-2

Rawlings, Huxley (Dixon), Brockwell, Cozens, Riddiford (Bolter), Harnor (1)(Barber), Frost, Seaforth, Partington(4), Ferguson (1) (Huxley), Baah (1)

NPL 4-4-2