| Sunday 1st Feb - 2009 Midlife Crisis 2 - 2 Raleigh Rovers Mark Evans debut as manager was a stunning success. He managed to whittle a squad of 17 (on the Wednesday) down to a bare 11 by match day. He was there but could not play so he just froze in a biting wind as Midlife lined up against the 15 man squad of Raleigh who had had won every match for the previous 3 seasons. Midlife won the toss and elected to play with the wind (strongly) behind us and into the sun and we went ahead when Keith S. poked home after a corner was poorly dealt with. Midlife had about 50% of the possession and about 40% of the chances and the following wind helped but Raliegh equalised just before half time with a header from a corner that hit the bar and they reacted the fastest to tap in the rebound. Halftime was 1-1 but the wind was picking up and the second half saw our 11 tiring but a last ditch defence and a commanding role from Andy in goal kept the score level for 20 minutes. The ball was not leaving our half for long periods of time and then a loose ball outside our area was lashed into the top right corner of Andy's goal, brushing his fingertips en-route, by a Raleigh Rover who used to be in the Horsley F.C. 1st team. The last 25 minutes were siege conditions and time and again Raleigh failed to press home their superiority. Paul Smeeth dropped into central defence and Igor and Dave took turns to drop deeper into midfield and Midlife held firm whilst they rarely crossed the half way line. But both Dave and Igor still had the odd ball to feed off as Raleigh pressed on to try and kill the game off. And so it was that with about 10mins to go, a clearance found Igor, he burst thru an attempted sandwich and was left one on one with the keeper - who had not TOUCHED the ball in the second half - and with consummate ease he slotted it home to equalise. Further enormous pressure ensued but we held on to secure a draw against a team who had beaten the mighty Oxshott the previous weekend! GK Andy Bedford Fausto Colarusso Keith Stone Rick Victor Simon Cox Bobby Sale Paul Smeeth Patrick Maddison Simon Imbert Igor Orlic Dave Pope |
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| Match report Simon Cox |