Philosophers robbed by new boy luvvies

OMD 2 PFFC 1

Phil Storey, 15 September 2008

 

We arrived to confirmation that we were not in fact playing Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (incidentally, I went to school with their keyboard player) but some media agency who played with 10 men. We gave Matt a bit of stick for the previous match report and his failing eyesight. Tony was particularly pleased that I got credit for his own-goal.

After a good early turnout with a full squad and a decent warm-up, the following team took to the field: Matt in goal; Owen left back, Tony right back, Phil and Vipul in the centre; Damo and Ron central midfield, Clarkey right and Andy left; Kieran and Conrad up front. Tony, Mauro and José waited on the bench. 

A brisk start saw us passing to feet and using the width. We dominated for the first 15 minutes and made a few chances with Clarkey's crosses and some testing through balls. Eventually a move down the right was finished sharply by Clarkey to open the scoring. An emerging trait in Philosophy teams has been to sit back on a lead and concede possession, and indeed this is what we did once more. Just a few minutes later a set play was headed away from deep within our box but fell straight to an OMD foot: 1-1.

We lost our ability to pass to feet and the rest of the half saw us under pressure but working really hard and with good shape. Tony in particular had a great game to reduce them to lots of pressure but little in the way of chances. The half-time talk was focused on finding width and imposing our passing game, but the second half began with the Red Men struggling to keep possession and increasingly playing long balls which OMD’s defence found easy to deal with.

There were, however, very few chances at either end; Philosophy held the increasingly confident and energetic opposition players at bay with good marking and pressure. The deadlock was eventually broken by an OMD free kick from the edge of the box being driven low towards the goal. It slipped past three defenders and underneath Matt’s body to put OMD back in front.

José then replaced Clarkey on the right, Mauro came on for Ron in the middle and Tom replaced Andy on the left. The game started to open up a bit: the Thinkers started to play some better football, José in particular showing good close control and awareness to play some neat moves down the right, and our fitness saw us pushing OMD right to the end.

We struggled, however, to make many clear-cut chances: Mauro struck just wide, and Damo had a free kick dip just over the bar. However, our best chance came in the closing minutes: Conrad was beating his man in the area and was pulled back by two hands on his shoulders. A unified team shout was not enough to move the referee toward sense and we were left to go home disappointed.

 

Man of the match: TBA