AEI RUGBY 0-0 FOLLY LANE: LIGHT-HEARTED MATCH REPORT BY THE MOWDOG...

It Was Folly To Have Expected Drama As The Bell Tolls For the League Leaders

AEI Rugby 0-0 Folly Lane

(played @ Browns Road, Daventry)

This match was billed as a potential title decider. Folly Lane could win the league with a victory, whereas AEI could draw or win the game, then finish as champions by winning their remaining outstanding games. Enough ingredients then for the two teams to serve up a garnished treat. Instead though, the spectators who witnessed this drab, physical, uninventive, unexciting, grim encounter probably felt like they had been offered stale bread and tap water by a waiter with snot on his shirt. The balls used, often discarded as too soft, spent a great deal of time being whacked, like at an old-time Rugby Union match, in which both teams simply punted the ball forward and hoped the opposition would drop it, rather than run with it and be inventive. Folly Lane looked marginally the better of two disappointing groups before the break, although AEI’s Lee David Vince came close to scoring with a free-kick shot. The second period failed to improve and with tempers fraying, Folly Lane getting desperate and time running out for the ‘visitors’, at least the final 10 minutes were, let’s say, fraught… Unpleasant scenes followed the match as the players left the field, possibly involving ‘spectators’ but it was tough to see from my position as I walked behind one of the goal-frames towards the exit, rather glad to get away…

LEE VINCE, 9, PONDERS A QUIET EVENING...

HALTON BOWS TO THE BRILLIANCE OF RUSSELL'S BEARD...

The opening stages set the scene for the way the clash panned out for the whole ninety minutes: poor control of the ball, misplaced passes, huge punted clearances and the constant replacement of wayward balls. An error by Luke Pritchard allowed Folly’s Dan Pidgeon a shooting opportunity from distance but he missed the target by some distance. Folly Lane’s James Halton was one player who attempted to be innovative at least and he was also winning aerial duels in midfield, which was one area where AEI struggled throughout the match. As a kid, I used to play a carpet-football game with cards of 1960s footballers, pulled from bubble-gum packets, which I used to flick a silver paper ball with at nets made from scissored pieces of onion bags. My invented team name was Halton Town, James’ surname and writing this shows just how little action there was to report on last night… 

IZZARD & RUSSELL LEAP...

WATCH THIS, KIDS...

A rare incisive attack on the right by Folly saw hard-working and heavily bearded striker John Russell combine with Pidgeon, whose cross from the byeline was challenged for beyond the far stick by Andre Yerou but he was unable to direct his header. Home ‘keeper Lubomir Sabol fielded a speculative shot from Brad Jones, before Vince benefited from a one-two for Rugby but his effort was well off target. Vince, a prolific goalscorer, I hear, was playing on the left flank and the service he received was so scarce that he was rarely involved in the action. Sabol was then expected to deal with a simple angled shot by Russell, whose own efforts had created the chance but the goalie failed to gather the ball, like he had stumbled on the back door step and dropped the cat’s litter tray onto the conservatory carpet. Skipper Sean Castleton, who was sturdy throughout the game for his team, hacked the loose ball to safety.

EXCITING ACTION...

MORE EXCITING ACTION...

A Rugby corner was messed up by Castleton and he was robbed, allowing Pidgeon to fly along the right and outrun Pritchard, offering a chance for him to shoot from an angle but the sliced effort was so far off target, it resembled a good number of the hacked clearances made by defenders on the night. Halton became incensed when he was badly tackled and rather late by AEI’s James Farrow, whose often inaccurate passing, along with Pritchard’s, brought regular groans from the environs of the team’s dugout during the evening. The free-kick came to nought but a second chance from another free-kick gave Jones the Shoe a chance to fire in a shot, which dropped only just too high from 27 yards.

MR ENCOURAGEMENT CLEARS HIS THROAT...

JAMES HALTON: SOME INNOVATION...

When Jones was then hurt and was forced to go off the pitch for a few moments, the referee was looking at him ready to signal him back onto the field when Rugby’s Jim Smith tried a shot from 25 yards, which struck Folly’s Brett Davies on its way for a corner but the official wasn’t looking that way and simply awarded a goal-kick. It was all grist to the mill of untidiness that gripped this top of the table clash. The final meaningful acton of the half was a free-kick, right-side, just outside the 18 yard box, which the left boot of Vince itched to take. It did so but the effort thumped the outside of the near post and the players were quickly offered some respite from the humping and thumping, heaving and grieving, and moaning and groaning of the opening 45 minutes. And so were the spectators, thank the gods…

"STAND UP NUMBER 7, YOUR TIME IS UP..."

NOT YOUR USUAL HALF-TIME PHYSIO' SESSION...

A shot by Smith,from Vince’s neat assist was collected by the Folly goalie James ‘Redundant’ Wardle but still the proceedings were irritable, angry and error strewn. Dale Linton replaced Smith for the ‘hosts’ and then Yerou and Russell combined to send Pidgeon hustling through the middle but Sabol raced from goal to snatch the ball as the attacker threatened. He then lay down. And he was treated. The visiting central defender Sam Madill, whose bellowed instructions and geeing up of his troops would have done wonders for infantrymen at the battle of Passchendaele during the First World War, was hurt and when he left the encounter for a field-dressing station, he was replaced by Rich Elliott, but the atmosphere suffered without Madill’s musings.

COUPLE NUMBER 14 HAVE WON A SPOT PRIZE AT THE LOCAL BARN DANCE...

Yerou appeared to be cautioned for a foul, Gerard McGamey replaced Vince for AEI, who stood near me, lamenting how tough Folly were to play against and how poor the surface was, with its long grass but he agreed that the match had been really poor. Steve Maddox, a pivot in the Lane midfield and always ready for a physical clash, was cautioned for a foul on the strangely ineffective Karl Finney of Rugby, who struggled all evening to shake off the attentions of Folly’s Dan Vincent. The game was descending from uninventive and mistake-riddled to unpleasant, uninviting and mistake-riddled and Yerou was replaced by Ash Piper for Lane. Finney, not in the same mould as Tom, was withdrawn too and on came Halim Halim (is that right?) and soon, Tom Berwick, who I’ve seen play for Stourbridge as well as Daventry a number of times and yet I hadn’t even recognised in this match with his current hairstyle nearly won the game for the ‘home’ team. McGamey slipped a pass to him at inside-left but Berwick was no doubt misled by Folly defender Brett Davies’ error and had little time to adjust his feet as Wardle advanced and the ‘keeper made the blocking save.

THE REFEREE, IN SHAKESPEAREAN STYLE, SENSES FOUL PLAY...

Kieran Fitzharris replaced Folly’s injured and very annoyed Halton, Matt Izzard, actually quite calm alongside Castleton in the Rugby defence, deflected a Jones shot for a right-wing corner, which Russell nearly connected with at the near post with a header and with AEI reeling a little and Folly bullishly getting forward in some desperation, a long boot forward by the Lane defence bounced near Sabol, who appeared to be deceived by the flight of the ball and he was forced to leap up to his right to concede a corner. That was just about it, although when competent AEI right-back Mitch Boe was pulled back by the shorts and then trodden on by the exasperated Pidgeon’s boot, a late caution was offered for the Folly of the Lane man and the game then ended with two incidents worth reporting.

ANGER EMANATES...

First, a Folly coach lost his temper with a member of his own team, possibly Maddox; there was pointing, there was yelling, there was uncontrolled temper and the coach yelled something like: “Oh, do be quiet my good fellow… Who are you shouting at? Me? Do be careful, chum, or I will attempt to manoeuvre your chin, so that it emerges from your cranium…” I think that’s what he shouted, anyway. Then, at the final whistle, words were spoken from the sideline near me and this escalated into some unsavoury scenes near the tunnel, during which Halton lifted something in his annoyance, I reckon…

IF ONLY ALL NUMBERS ON ALL SHIRTS WERE AS EASY TO READ...

MITCH BOE HAS NOT ONLY HAD HIS SHORTS PULLED DOWN BUT HIS LEG TRODDEN ON TOO...

Not for me to say.

Anyhow, the game over, I wondered why it had been so awful. Too much at stake, too many tired players? Bad pitch? A need by AEI not to lose? Too few players with the ability on the night to show some enterprise? Who knows?

NEEDING SOMEONE TO YELL AT...

NOTHING TO CELEBRATE... WHAT A LET-DOWN...
LIKE YOUR IBIZA HOTEL HAS NO BAR.

JOHN RUSSELL LIES BACK TO CONSOLE HIS BEARD...

OK, Darren Wood at left-back for Rugby, stuck to his task well, as did Boe, Castleton and Izzard but little else was noteworthy. Folly’s Jones was wholehearted, Madill vociferous, Maddox intense, Russell a real worker on offense, Pidgeon quick and Halton had some neat skills. Sadly, these isolated abilities made for a messy whole and it remains to see whether AEI ‘The Bell’ Rugby can deny Folly Lane the title by winning all their remaining games. I’ll attend and see…

"LET'S ALL GET VERY SILLY... YEAH?"

THE CROWD FINDS SOMETHING EXCITING TO WATCH AT LAST...

DAN PIDGEON OFFERS THE SPECTATORS THE CHANCE TO VIEW A FREE SCRAP IN THE TUNNEL...

It’s what I do…  

TEAMS:

AEI ‘THE BELL’ RUGBY:

Lubomir Sabol, Mitch Boe, Darren Wood, Sean Castleton (Capt), Matt Izzard, Kane Finney, Jim Smith, James Farrow, Lee David Vince, Tom Berwick, Luke Pritchard.

SUBS:

Halim Halim, Dale Linton, Gerard McGamey.

FOLLY LANE:

James Wardle, Brad Jones, Dan Vincent, Steve Maddox, Sam Madill, Brett Davies, Andre Yerou, Rhys Deehan, John Terrier, Dan Pidgeon, James Halton.

SUBS:

Ash Piper, Rich Elliott, Kieran Fitzharris.