Thursday 10 December 2009

Colwyn Bay 4 - Garforth Town 2

5-12-09

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is probably best known for a stupid theme that people whistle when thinking about cowboys and Indians, pistols at dawn and maybe as a spoof for a fighter staredown, but on Saturday Garforth and their bilingual visitors actually displayed all attributes. The good – Town dominating the second half, winning it two-nil, striker Greaves bagging a brace, et cetera. The bad – Town allegedly conceding four goals in a period of madness. I cannot say for sure – I blinked. The ugly – Colwyn’s entire team. No, I keed, I keed.

After forty-five minutes of comme ci, comme ça, Town went to work. One can only speculate what brought about the change – a soundtrack of Republica’s Ready To Go and Chumbawamba Tubthumping, stanozolol injections and a crate of red bull perhaps – maybe a Gunnery Sgt. Hartman team talk (you had best sound off that you love the Virgin Mary). Who knows? Whatever is was, it worked, as they bossed the second. Greaves hit the post with a header following a cross from the right, a flank that Chris Ovington caused consistent problems on for the visitors. His speed was evident in outpacing full backs, and though he might be small, so was Igor Vovchanchyn. Load up the interwebz and check out that savage…

Colwyn almost scored following an attacker’s jinking run, but the shot was cut wide of the post. Ovington almost claimed an assist in the subsequent attack, sending a ball in from the right channel just outside the box, but a lunging challenge scuppered the chance. Soon after, with a yellow shirted player down, the Welshmen obstinately refused to show sportsmanship and put the ball out of play. One day these men will play fair. But until that day, they are pukes. They are the lowest forms of life on earth. They are not even hum…

Garforth drew first blood of the second (not John.J style – ‘in town you’re the law… out here it’s me’) when a ball up to Greaves caught in the churned ground. Taking full advantage of the conditions, Greaves slid in before the advancing keeper to send the ball past him into the empty net. 1-0 in the second half, daddyo.

In less time than it takes Naseem Hamed to get to the ring during his entrances, Greaves had doubled his tally. Ovington played him in when he sent the ball across to the right channel, Greaves evaded the challenge, cut in and cut back his finish to the near post. As the fans sang, easy, easy.

Garforth clearly didn’t lose this game; they just ran out of time to win it in. It was a happier set of fans come the end, as to be honest, there is something in human nature that makes us failure parasites (hence the second half attendance of even the most disappointed of us). Yet they ended well. In dominating the second half, Town showed what they could and should have done in the entirety of the game, and earned a moral victory. Sport often draws connotations with war, and the metaphors used in this country’s ridiculously shabby, uninteresting, unentertaining sports journalism are common, clichéd and endless. They have a point though – Colwyn facing Town in the second half resembled the formerly raging Trojans fleeing as Achilles and the Myrmidons re-entered the fray, sending them scattering to the four winds. And as the Trojans could tell you, in war it is not who is rampant early, it is those who finish strongly and decisively. Do the right thing, UniBond league; one-point-five points will come in handy before the storms of winter…

Trust and Believe.

Garforth Town 2 - Rossendale United 1

21-11-09

The best thing about being down is that, barring disaster, you make it back up. The best thing about a dire performance is that it often results in immediate improvement, a positive backlash. The best thing about a losing streak is that it usually snaps. And against Rossendale, the good followed the bad, immediate improvement followed a dire performance, and the two losses in Ashton Under Lyne against the table toppers were wiped away by a win against a Rossendale United outfit bolstered by mid-season reinforcements, with several new signings appearing for the capable side who maintained parity with the aforementioned Curzon Ashton for ninety minutes only ten days ago.

Rossendale opened the scoring with one sixth of the game gone; Shaun Williams putting his name into the internet annals of unibondleague.com history for a bit more wasted bandwidth, when he scored with a heavily deflected shot. While neither side claimed any real superiority in the first, let it be known that Garforth gave the ball away eighty-eight times. Bear that in mind.

Though the second half performance eclipsed that of the one that preceded it, Garforth did at least ‘draw the first’, when the in-form Tom Greaves added to his seasonal tally with a header from close range.

As good quality often follows the dire, now came a half in which Town conceded the ball forty-one times. In the eventuality of defending a lead, which subsequently happened, this includes long balls, clearances and the usual associated gameplay of a one-goal-lead game in the dying minutes, a feature the first half did not boast. In reality, the second half figure would presumably be in the region of thirty. Markedly improved from the first half statistics of eighty-eight, perhaps resulting from tactics or team talks.

The wind and relentless rain picked up, though the typically well maintained pitch held up as ever; unlike most others at this level that would have deteriorated into a 100 by 60 no-mans-land of sludge, better suited to making trenches either side of to shoot ze Germans from.

The grass may have held, but aerial balls and even throws were claimed by the wind, serving as an unpleasant preview to the action expected through the winter months in the cold. To be a football fan…

Speaking of the Germans, with only nein minutes (budum-ch) of the second half gone, Nathan Kamara headed home from an out-swinging corner to give Garforth the lead. His brother Chris returned to the starting line-up after a two-year spell at Goole in East Yorkshire, following a failed trial at the Dog and Duck in Wigan.

Garforth held out well, and could and probably should have increased their winning margin. Man of the Match Chris Ovington curled in a peach from the right wing for Greaves, but the striker weighted his volleyed shot too heavily, and sent the ball over.

Greaves claimed the ball in an advanced position up the left channel soon after, and laid off midfielder Duncan Williams. The dependable youngster squeezed through a ball for Ovington, but unfortunately the goalkeeper proved sufficiently alert to race out and clear before the winger arrived.

And so Town win, moving onwards to a packed Christmas schedule that hopefully can see the side replicate their promotion winning winter runs that saw rapid ascension up the league ladders in 04/05, and 06/07. Such a succession of routs would be welcome in the winter months.