AFC Telford Fans 3 - Blue & Amber 1
Venue: Idsall School
Date: 03/09/05
Kick Off: 9.30 am

AFCTU fans picked up another victory to take them to 6 wins on the bounce with a close fought 3-1 victory over a well organised Blue & Amber team. Despite not being at their best throughout the game, the victory shows how far the team have come in the past year because in previous meetings against the Blue & Amber team, the fans team have been defeated in each encounter.

TheTelford team started much the brighter of the two teams forcing the B&A defence to sit deep and soak up the majority of the pressure. Telford attacked well for the first twenty minutes of the game, with full-backs Adam Rathbone and Greg Paul looking to get forward at every opportunity. This was evident when Greg Paul received a pass from Jason Windsor 25 yards out from the Shrewsbury goal and stroke a shot on target which was comfortably saved.  Despite this pressure Telford never really looked like threatening the B&A goal apart from a Chris Catling header that was cleared off the line. Infact, Telford sometimes were their own worst enemy with the defence trying to play their way out of danger but failing a few times. Adam was caught out at left back dwelling on possession, but in fairness there was not a great deal of communication to help him out. Eventually however, a hopeful long ball from defence was latched onto by the pacey Matty Dickinson who comfortably lobbed the onrushing 'keeper to give Telford the lead. Matty has without a doubt proved to be a really useful player for the team, and has played a key part in his first three games for us.

Unfortunately for Telford, despite having the lead and the majority of the play, they were unable to get the ball the down and play the ball around in the same way as they had done in previous games and the game turned into a scrappy affair. Telfords best play was coming through the two wingers Nadal and Dickinson, whilst the B&A team themselves began to pick up the play and struck a couple of decent long range efforts just wide. Telford did eventually add to their lead however, just moments before half time. A long throw from Dickinson was poorly dealt with at the front post by the B&A defence and left winger Mike Nadal stole in to head home the goal.

An embarrassing affair took place half way through the first half when substitute Steve Bowyer demanded to be played, which saw a fiery confrontation between Chris Catling and himself. Catling decided then to “sod it” and sat the rest of the half off, and Bowyer came on for Chris Wilson– who ultimately did not live up to current expectation with his great recent scoring record.

HT. AFC Telford Fans 2 Blue & Amber 0

A re-occurance of the first half dispute carried over into the half time interval with Chris Wilson (partnered with his temper!) and Steven Bowyer had a loud and very embarrassing argument over the use of subs. Needless to say that if Jonah was here neither of them would have acted the way they did.

It also appeared that this incident was still in the majority of the players mind as the second half began, as only minutes in, Blue & Amber scored a freak goal from a defensive mix up to give themselves hope of rescuing the match. An unusual mistake from Rob Hughes and sloppy defending from Dave Pearson really was the result of the goal. By now Telford had made a number of substitutions and the team looked far different from the team, that had started the game, with Dave Corbett coming into centre back, Ian Dawes at left back, Sam Caine at left wing, Lee McNally at right wing and a forward pairing of Jamie Chancellor and Steve Bowyer. Richard Manns had moved into centre midfield as a result of this. Sam Caine battled well but then went off after 15 minutes with reasoning being “tired”! Dave Corbett was very solid at centre back in replacement for Chris Catling who reffed the second half. At this stage of the game the Telford team were all over the place.

Eventually, Telford did begin to take control of the game once again and began to play some nice flowing passing football with Manns and Windsor working well together in the middle of the park. Lee McNally came close to giving Telford a 3-1 lead with a decent effort that went just wide, but despite this the B&A team were still carrying the occasional threat up the other end and Rob Hughes had to pull of 2 or 3 good saves to keep the scoreline as it was. Matty Dickinson who had come back on to replace Sam Caine began to cause the B&A team problems with his pace and before long he was cynically tripped just outside the area after a good run. Richard Manns stepped up to curl the free kick into the roof of the net to give the fans a 3-1 lead and the 2 goal cushion they required.

A bit of controversy in the Telford penalty area rose when Dave Pearson went up for a challenge and seemed to come down hard on the Shrewsbury player. It was never really a foul though, although the Shrewsbury players and supporters seemed disgusted by the challenge.

From here on in, the game petered out and the Telford team went on to pick up another good victory despite the embarrassing outbursts at half time which really went on to ruin the day.

Ryan Groves played well in the middle of the field yet again, but needs to put his foot on the ball and then play the pass, especially in centre mid. In fact, that is the problem with a lot of the team. The score could have been more impressive if we had strung together some nice passes which seemed to elude us at times. Greg Paul practically played a full 90 minutes and his stamina was obviously lacking past the 70 minute mark.

Credit must go to Catling for not losing his cool when the going got tough in the first half, and at half time and instead seemed to laugh off the stupidity that some players had. Nadal too was very helpful in the second half, running the show in the second half from the side-line and calling all the shots.

FT. AFC Telford Fans 3 Blue & Amber 1