Ramsey had an overnight dilemma. All 3 of the squad’s regular fullbacks had gone AWOL. Charlie following the pies at Fulham, Joe following the Dragon at the Millennium Stadium and Fraser Kemp following the M6 to Keswick So what shuffling of the pack could he perform with the available personnel to quell a resurgent Parkhill team who had taken table-topping Edwalton to the wire two weeks previously. Then it came to him like a flash in a moment of inspiration and yet it was so simple and so obvious: play a system that has no fullbacks! And so LC lined up at Caythorpe with an unfamiliar fullbackless look. Flashie in goal, JC as sweeper, George and Sam at centreback and Tom and Ollie as WINGBACKS. Matthew S in the Makelele hole with Jonno and Big W in front of him and Fraser K who was under the weather with manflu and Elliot upfront. Ramsey took the wingbacks aside and explained the system. Tom was told you need to be a defender when they have the ball and a midfielder when we have the ball. Cooool was Tom’s response. To Ollie he said you need to defend when they have the ball and run up the wing when we have it. Ollie’s response was “That’s what I do every week” and Ramsey realised maybe the new system wasn’t that novel.
The venue was Caythorpe and despite Phil from Parkhill’s protests Ramsey insisted that the dome over Caythorpe pitch 1 was left open even though there was a 15% chance of rain. After Parkhill kicked off, LC quickly gained the ascendency and after a series of through balls from Makelele and Jonno had pegged back the Parkhill defence Fraser Knox stroked one past the Parkhill keeper 1-0. With Ramsey mindful that Mrs Ramsey had threaten to take his favourite Chef’s knife to him if he played Fraser at all, a shuffle of Knox’s brought Cam on for his brother. LC were well on top in the first half but just couldn’t get the second goal with Ollie, Elliot, Matthew, Big W and Jonno all coming close. Tom was a revelation at left wingback dancing down the wing with ease and George looked like he had always played centrehalf. Parkhill were a much more solid and competitive outfit than when we played them last. Harry had been told to make sure he came off his line and he did this to the extreme on one occasion dribbling the ball past three players down the wing before booting the ball into the Old Volunteer on one of the rare occasions that the ball got through to him. Half-time 1-0.
The second half proved to be a more even highly contested affair and with about 15 minutes to go LC were starting to look under the cosh with a succession of Parkill chances being thwarted either by Flashie in goal or by desperate defending including a goal-line clearance by JC. Martin Holford who was watching the match from Ramsey’s side was asking about tactical changes when Ramsey turned to Sam hollering “Boot the ball up the pitch as hard as you can”. Desperate times require desperate tactics. At the other end both JC from a corner and Ollie had good chances but excellent goalkeeping saved the day and Makelele was stopped short by good defending on several of his surging battering ram runs. Last 5 and Fraser on for Elliot and LC had weathered the storm and started to play a bit again and threaten again. Discipline was key at this stage requiring a collective responsibility and the boys performed admirably to run out 1-0 winners. Sometimes you have to grind out the result and we did exactly that today. Sam was man of the match for his Mooresque performance and for me Tom and George were close behind with everyone else making great contributions.
Anyway after 3 cricket scores in succession we finally had a football score.
Away to Edwalton next week.
You reds! |
