Vintage Draw with Hampstead SuperVets
By Paddy Tripp
Vintage 1 – 1 Hampstead SuperVeterans
Team: Baker, Harding, Gorbert (Amersham), Molloy, Tripp, Desai, Sharpe, Aparicio, Abdullah (Nomad), Cheng, Schultz
Scorer: Gorbert
Umpires: Whelan & Fitch
Man of the Match: Jon Molloy
Here we are at halfway through the season…
Played 7, Won 2, Drawn 1, Lost 4, Goals For 8, Goals Against 17
Appearances: Total 93, Vintage 20, SHC other 25, Others 48
Good to welcome Molly back and turn-outs by Sharpe, Cheng and Schultz were much appreciated. Amazingly we had 90% SHC playing! But nothing ever goes smoothly – Hampstead only had 10 so I was sacrificed for the first half to balance the numbers.
Typically, without me, we played pretty well in the first half with Jon sorting the defence line and Suresh and Graham playing well in coordination to commands. Behind them Pat was thorough. The only area of weakness which showed was our passing. “OK,” I can hear you say or mutter, “What’s so unusual about that?” Answer – nothing, but it does make life more difficult up against a set of players playing as a team. Nonetheless we scored through Ross and had several chances to increase the margin but their keeper had an odd day and played pretty well.
Halftime saw Suresh give in to old age and your scribe replaced him – a little defence shuffle and we went on OK but then Pat tells me he made a misjudgement and that made it 1-1 – unfair to blame one person only. But we reacted well and nearly stole the game. A strong through ball from Bobby which the keeper missed – it hit the post and the ball just sat there. But that is all it did just 12 inches from the goalline and our eejit CF could not prod it over that line and hence threw away two points. I have to admit that my mind was not fully on the game but it would have been nice to have a goal to dedicate.