BOURNEMOUTH FA (SATURDAY) LEAGUE DIVISION 1
SATURDAY 20TH OCTOBER 2007
OLD OAKMEDIANS 2 - VERWOOD TOWN RESERVES 1

Team
1. Colin Randall
2. Liam Morrison
3. James Murray
4. Pete Eyre
5. Graham Cole
6. Gary Martin
7. Adam Richmond
8. Steve Reeves
9. Matt Newbury
10. Andy Martin
11. Dean Evans
12. Will Cobley ( for Adam Richmond 60 mins)
13. Martin Newbury (for Pete Eyre 65 mins)
14. Karl Foster ( for Matt Newbury 78 mins)

15. The battle of the two promoted sides from last season allowed us to renew old acquaintances, especially as they are one of the most physical and verbal teams around. Unfortunately this seemed to put us off in the 1st half where we were very disjointed and did not function as a team. Our conclusion as Managers was that they didn't bother to listen to us during the pre match team talk, but they certainly had no choice but to listen at half time!

2nd half saw an improvement but although end to end football, the quality from either side was not impressive. The deadlock though should have been broken in the 55th minute when Pete Eyre was upended in their box and we were awarded a penalty. Unfortunately the keeper saved Matt Newbury's spot kick and this gave Oaks heart and the tempo of the match increased with us having to be on the back foot for the next 15 minutes. However, perhaps against the run of play at that time we scored from a corner where Andy Martin buried a Dean Evans cross with a bullet header from 10 yards.

About quarter of an hour to go, all we had to do was hold out and we set about this in a confident manner and took a stranglehold on the game.

What happened next was one of those flukes that you just cannot cater for. 3 minutes to go with Oaks attacking saw a shot on the edge of our area blocked. The ball went back to the attacker whose first touch was awful, Gary Martin then saw his chance to clear the danger, but the ball hit the attacker and hurtled towards our goal but I feel going wide. However, such was the speed of the ball it struck our left back, James Murray who had little chance of getting out of the way and he diverted it into the goal off his shoulder!

2 minutes later, a long ball over the top of our defence saw Coley scampering across to clear the ball into touch. Whilst doing so he was flattened by the chasing attacker. Without doubt a free kick to us, agreed by everyone but the referee! From their throw in their midfielder had a shot which rebounded to him off a defender and he tried again with a strike that no goalie would have saved.

So in the last 3 minutes we had managed to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory!

Exceedingly disappointing, but I suppose that's Football and no doubt we'll get lucky later on this season.

Scorer: Andy Martin

Report submitted by Neville Munson