Division 1
Sun 26 Jan 2014
LOKO SEAL NEW YEAR WIN WITH 3 (MASTER) SET PIECES
After a 6-week break due to the diabolical weather, today’s game was given the final go-ahead the day before much to the footie-starved Loko squad’s relief. Coach Terry had asked for everybody to turn up 1 hour before kick-off to ensure the team warmed up properly except for Marcel, Adil and Gomes who made it to the pitch with only 2 minutes before kick-off.
The men in QPR hoops aka Accrington Stanley Bowles are no mugs. This came into sharp focus when, with the benefit of fierce winds, one of their in-swinging corners ended up in the back of our net with only 9 mns on the clock.
This was a major setback given that Loko had been acquitting themselves quite well until then. Sure, Accrington managed to carve open the stretched Loko defence on more than one occasion. But Loko were playing it safe with the old boys’ central defence tandem of Ismail and Ivan more than often passing back to keeper John rather than trying anything fancy.
In midfield, the return of Gomes (pictured above) invigorated the team as he was waltzing past his markers time and time again whilst now slimline captain Matt was also playing brilliantly.
Our reward came on 21 minutes when Adil, who was causing their defence constant headaches, strode confidently into the box but got scythed down by one of their defenders. Penalty. As usual, a few players were very keen to take it but they all saw sense and gave it to ADIL who possibly took a risk on the muddy pitch by shooting low straight through the middle. Thankfully, the Accrington goalie conceded the equaliser by diving to his right.
Loko were now dominating the midfield and only our opponents’ non-stop fouling of Adil, Gomes and Terry prevented us from capitalising on our attacks.
On 32 minutes, yet another foul 25 yards out resulted in a freekick. Dave F floated his cross into the box where TERRY, who had his back to the goal swivelled round and connected with the ball that flew into the roof of the net. Accrington didn’t know what had hit them and we walked off the pitch confident that the tide had turned.
Half time: Loko 2 vs Accrington Stanley Bowles 1
The first half was a demonstration of patience, brains and skills by the railwaymen despite the sticky surface. The second half was not going to be in the same league, more like a battle of attrition.
This was when, once more this season, Loko showed true grit and solidarity. This was particularly in evidence when, on 69 minutes, a strong but normally manageable shot for a quality keeper like John inexplicably bounced off his open hands and ended up in the back of the net. This was a head in hands moment and could have demoralised the team. No chance of that though and it was all hands to the pump from then on.
Gary, who had come on after 60 minutes for Marcel, was tackling like a high speed lawnmower whilst the likes of Terry and Neil saved us on several occasions with last ditch clearances. Plus, John didn’t let his rare mistake affect him in the least and was back to his confident self.
With 10 minutes left, Terry took a freekick on the left hand side of the pitch and his shot hit the far post only for lurking GARY - who was now on his backside -managed to slot the rebound into the empty net.
Loko had their win and fully deserved it despite the Accrington’s manager disbelief and remark that he didn’t understand how we won that game. The answer? A great first half, control, grit and master (set pieces).
M.O.T.M: Quite a few excellent performances today from Neil, Gary, Terry, Matt and Adil but M.O.T.M goes to GOMES for making things happen in the first half in particular.
Line-up: John – Neil, Ismail, Ivan, Mark – Terry, Marcel (then Gary, 60’), Dave F (then Jack 65’), Matt, Gomes (then Andre 70’), Adil
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