|
|||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Come On Canvey I don't ever remember so many Canvey fans bollocking the team for their poor performance as I heard throughout the second half today. This one will surely go down with those other memorable failures - Burgess Hill, Lowestoft, Slough and Chelmsford City. Whereas Yeading were up for this one, from the manager down, all indications were that the Canvey team were already on the plane for the end of season trip to Greece. There was precious little passion, commitment, flair or imagination. But it would be wrong to blame just the players. Why does the Canvey management team play so many players out of their natural preferred positions? Who decided that it would be a good idea to play Neil Gregory up front and pump balls towards his head, when the opposing defence averaged 6' 6" tall? Who failed to change the tactic of long balls forward when it was obvious, after only ten minutes, that it simply wasn't going to work? Yeading, to their credit, had obviously done their homework. They came with a game-plan and they stuck to it. Minton was marked by at least two players, as was Boylan. They had so little room in which to operate that their effectiveness was seriously impeded. Yeading knew that if you run at the Canvey defence, they will invariably back off and give you space. They quickly picked up on Canvey's weaknesses and played on them for the entire game. No 9 Errol Telemaque was a handful all afternoon and he kept popping up in the middle, out on the left and also on the right. No. 10 Danny Jordan knew how to run off the ball in a way that nobody from Canvey could quite understand. Early in the game, whenever Yeading 'hoofed' the ball upfield, the Yellow Army standing around me jeered and chanted. But what we failed to realise is that Yeading practise this style of play and they are good at it. Whenever the ball was hoofed, the player kicking it knew where it was going. Meanwhile, the players at the front knew a long ball was coming and they were ready to receive it. This was no accident, it was an effective way of playing against the Premier runners-up. Unable (or unwilling) to play their natural game, Canvey joined in the long ball forward approach. It has never worked at any time this season, and so the question must be asked, why on earth did anybody think it would be effective today? Canvey always looked the most effective when they played ball to feet. With so many defenders carrying a high centre of gravity, why was the ball not being kept on the floor by the diminutive Canvey feet players?
Yeading were able to thread passes right through the Canvey defence like a knife through butter. They won everything in the air and they collected all the second balls. Canvey fans were blaming the referee and linesmen for bad decisions, but they were the same for both sides. What wasn't the same, was the degree of ambition and desire from the players out on the field. Yeading's goals were both good, although both might have been saved if only Canvey had closed down the attack much more quickly and not allowed attackers to have so much space to explore. Even when Canvey did get the ball into the 6yd box, it didn't look as if anybody wanted to convert. Neil Gregory got very little with his head today and even when crosses did come over that were within his reach, he failed to get high enough and sent several efforts high or wide. On the hour he did get a ball to his feet from a long pass from Boylan. Greggers was coming into the 6yd box from the left but instead of smashing home, he seemed to lose interest and passed the ball inside to the advancing Brayley. Bertie didn't seem to have the commitment to connect either, and so the ball was easily cleared. This was the way the game was going. A very disappointing performance from most of the team in general and from others, who did manage to muster up some sort of commitment, it was simply not enough. Good luck to Yeading. They deserved their victory in a game that they always wanted to win. Perhaps Jeff should have played the weakened side he put out right at the start of the competition at Hayes. They gave it 110% and got themselves a well earned victory. If Canvey didn't want this competition at all, I wish a message could have been put on the discussion board. We could have all stayed at home and finished some decorating.
Match Report by Merv
(better not show my face at Park Lane for a few months!) Photos: Click on the right and left arrows above to scroll through the images. Click on any thumbnail to view it in a larger format. There are 15 images to view. If the arrow is dark there are more images to the right or left. Pictures are © Ian C. Walmsley / First Images 2003. Please do not copy these images without permission.
Photos: Click on the right and left arrows above to scroll through the images. Click on any thumbnail to view it in a larger format. There are 15 images to view. If the arrow is dark there are more images to the right or left. Pictures are © Ian C. Walmsley / First Images 2003. Please do not copy these images without permission
Teams
Weather Conditions: Dry, bright and sunny. What did you think of
today's match? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Boylan almost got Canvey off to a golden start
within a minute when he cut in from the left with a great shot, but it was
blocked for a corner. Then Duffy came from the same direction just a
minute later when he tried to lob the 'keeper, but he was just wide. Apart
from Boylan heading into the side netting after 20 minutes, that was about the
sum total of the Canvey action until the dying minutes of the game. Hodson
had so little to do apart from encourage the players in front of him and take
goal kicks.
