Bedfordshire County League 0 Amateur Football Combination 0

Bedfordshire won 4-3 on penalties

Report courtesy of Dave Stanners

The Amateur Football Combination plummeted out of the prestigious National League System Cup in the most unsatisfactory and painful manner, on penalties, arguably after having carved themselves out the lion’s share of possession and pressure, with a super-human effort from their tireless midfield, at Biggleswade United on Wednesday evening 23^rd September. Lest anyone has any doubt, it should be added that Bedfordshire deserved their win if only for shading things in the only area in which they were not outplayed, that most important aspect of the game, taking chances, even during the eventual shoot out. 

A.F.C. managers, Rory Vermeulen and Paul Rumley had lost more than half the squad that played in their last match against Yorkshire Old Boys at the end of last season, strikers Leon Smith and David Laird, and centre back Richard Pilcher to the semi-paid ranks, and another half dozen to injury. However, it was their frenetic but fruitless pre-season search for at least one more striker to give an extra cutting edge to the team that was to be crucial on the night. Possibly in the hope of rekindling the spirit and fire of a prolific partnership of the era before last, Ed Glover was started up front and his erstwhile partner, Colin Hawkins was straining at the leash on the bench. It was a tribute to the A.F.C. management’s careful nurturing of the players that were available that, despite all this hassle, the visitors soon monopolised the ball and when the hosts did manage to get it they either had it instantly filched or generously gave it away.  It would have been no travesty if the A.F.C. had been four up at half time, tempting one to have recourse to that well worn cliché, ‘If it had been a boxing match the ref might well have stopped the fight’. The self effacing Glover, who possibly has had his predatory instinct blunted by being used as an auxiliary midfielder at club level, put his hand up for several missed chances, glossing over the fact that his graft and serpentine dribbling through heavy traffic had made them available in the first place. It was the mercilessly unyielding bone dry pitch which both sides had to battle with a low success rate and well before the end it had claimed enough victims to have physio Mike Brown shuttling on constantly and added time of Old Trafford proportions. However, the most vital of these injuries was to the visitors’ Peter Eguae who limped off with strained ankle ligaments on twenty minutes to leave team-mates hamstrung without his withering match-winning pace. 

In the circumstances it was no surprise when turning round still level took the wind out of the A.F.C. sails and handed the hosts the initiative for the restart although their period of domination was never to be complete and lasted just twenty minutes. Notwithstanding that the A.F.C. quickly resumed their domination of midfield, the second half saw the hosts coming closest to registering on the scoreboard with a well-won penalty, brilliantly saved by Stuart Henley, a disallowed goal and a header which rattled the bar. With just under thirty minutes to go Vermeulen and Rumley introduced their ‘deus ex machina’ Colin Hawkins up front, hoping to tip the balance and break the deadlock. Unable any more to produce that electric surge of power which used to take him beyond reach of most defences, Hawkins still showed he had the innate ability to hold the ball up in congested space and make penetrating passes capable of harnessing those around him. The more was the pity that a number of his colleagues were either hobbling wounded or had expended too much energy to be able to take advantage of the situation and there was to be no change to the end of extra time. There could only have been the slightest nagging doubt that it might have been better for Hawkins to have been paired up with a fresh Glover at the start and for Eguae to have been introduced later when his pace could have been telling against tired legs. But that’s hindsight for you! 

Bedfordshire hospitality was exemplary and conversation too polite to allow, even under the breath, such muttered phrases as, ‘We wuz….’ Or ‘Look in the score boo…..’.

Squad: Stuart Henry (Albanian), Matt O’Sullivan (Old Ignatians), Damien Swan (Old Aloysians), Innis Pirrie (UCL Academicals),  Laurie Pointer (Old Meadonians), Chris Akinrele (Old Parmiterians), Eamon Keane (Albanian), Will Gerrish, Peter Eguae (OM), Ian Sawyer (Bealonians), Ed Glover (OM), Jay Abberley (OP), Nick Jones, Colin Hawkins (OM), Sub not used, Andy Thompson (OM).