At many times during this struggle I have been left shaking my head despondently at the events unfolding around me, on the field, off the field.
During the first half of our last league game, a crucial 6 pointer in the relegation battle, it was the same, but without the despondence.
With the game pushed back an hour, I had time to relax in the morning. I spent the extra hour finishing Part 3 of this series and applying monstrous amounts of Deep Heat to my legs. My previous day’s work had left my legs worse for wear and a poor night’s sleep compounded the DOMS effect. However, this was no time to cry foul. I needed to get some sort of movement going in my legs ahead of the game. I felt we would be stretched for numbers again and that I would be playing some if not all of the game. An hour before kick-off, my manager knocked on my door. As I mentioned previously in Part 3, I had not made known my availability for the game. I immediately thought he was knocking on my door looking for me. He wasn’t, he was looking for a ball pump.
The game was going ahead, and I wasn’t far wrong with my prediction of playing time. Because with half an hour before kick-off, we had only 5 lads at the pitch. Our opponents had arrived, and had begun their warm-up. It was alarming, even if the management and some of the lads weren’t so worried. It was even more alarming that it was a nightmare trying to run. My legs were in no condition to play football. My lungs and overall fitness had improved slightly since the last game with the advent of Junior B training, but how much could I say for the lads who showed up? It was the first thing I asked each of them. How was the fitness? It was going have to be good if we had less than the requisite 11, which was looking likely
It was a beautiful morning for a game. Previous matches had fallen foul to the weather but there would be no such problems this time around. The pitch too was also in fine condition. And as time edged ever closer to kick-off, our numbers increased too! Remarkably, we had 11 in time for kick-off. Even more remarkably we decided to start with 10. This was because one lad would arrive 5 minutes after kick-off, and rather than waste a substitute. A makeshift warm-up, a relative makeshift starting eleven minus one. A relegation six pointer at home, our opponents four points ahead of us in eighth. The scene was set.
We kicked off. The opening stages would be crucial. And we started tentatively. You have to take into account that we hadn’t trained together in six weeks. Sure, we all knew each other, but there was no cohesion or any idea what pace was within our ability. Thankfully, our opponents were no great shakes either. I started the game at right back, my usual position. I had lost out on my chance to make that position my own just before Xmas to another lad and my injury setback. He was on the left side. We agreed to swap sides if he found it tough. We didn’t have to. The opposing wingers were the ones to switch in order to make an impact in the final third. We were holding our own but individual mistakes were letting us down going forward. Some of those were my own, which annoyed me. I did start a well worked move down the right wing that seemed to get us going, or at least prove we were capable of controlling this game.
And then it happened.
There were a few half chances that came our way but the breakthrough came from our main striker, our main goal-scoring threat but the kind of striker who needs 5 chances to score once, who’d score the more difficult goals than the easiest ones. He took up possession inside the box, dribbled his way across the goal, squandering chances to shoot during it before from what seemed a very acute angle from my position on the field, slotted the ball into the top corner. Like I said, he would score the impossible goals before the easiest ones but they all count. Five minutes later, we won a free-kick 25 yards out. We have a dead ball specialist in our ranks so any free-kick is a decent opportunity. He struck it perfectly with his left foot, only for it to hit the underside of the crossbar and come back out to our other striker, the one who hadn’t scored a goal all season. What seemed like an eternity for it to drop, he struck it first time into the roof of the net to make it 2-0. To be fair to him, he has usually played out on the wing for most of the season but he almost made a bet with our centre back to see who would score first. He should have taken it. 10 minutes later, a cutback across goal was finished well by our main striker again, proving he could score the easier ones. And moments after that, a great team move was finished off emphatically into the top corner by the other striker to bring his season tally to 2, the score-line for day to 4-0.
I was left shaking my head in joy at what was unfolding. We were destroying our opponents. Confidence was flowing throughout. It could have been more than 4-0 at half-time. We weren’t flawless, but by god we were effective and nothing like a team fighting relegation. It was soul soothing for me. Defeat in this game would effectively kill us. Now we had given ourselves a new lease of life. The mood was buoyant at half time but we stressed the urge to continue the same way in the second. Any complacency would allow our opponents back into it and we had a taste for conceding many goals. Goal difference was crucial also, we were 5 goals behind our opponents in the table so it was imperative that if we don’t score any more, we shouldn’t concede any either.
Unfortunately, that’s what happened. Within 10 minutes of the second half, it was 4-2. They switched to 3 up front and that stretched the back four enough to hit twice. Even more unfortunate was that they both came from my side of the pitch. The first goal was a slightly deflected volley off me that just eluded our goalkeeper. The second saw me outnumbered 2 to one and they took advantage to half the deficit. Our team was now in disarray. Not only had the formation switch confused us, but our intensity suddenly dropped. All momentum was now with the opposition and we needed to stem the flow. That meant taking me off and bringing on another defender in a straight swap. Moments before I had hurt my hip going for a header. Nothing serious. It was only after I came off it got worst. But I sensed I would be coming off anyways.
The substitution did little to stem the flow. Our manager still hadn’t copped to the formation switch. Now the game suddenly turned into an end-to-end battle. We squandered chances, they squandered chances. A goal for us would end their comeback, a goal for them would really turn on the pressure. They had one great chance that just went wide, and were enjoying plenty of territory. I alerted our manager to the fact they were playing 3-4-3 and he made a few switches on the field. The pace of the game slowed down, especially as fitness began to fade. With our main striker on a hat-trick, he was desperate to complete his hat-trick. Two chances came his way but he failed to convert. Our central midfielder who struck the free-kick in the first half was also desperate to score a goal also went close with a free-kick. Ultimately it was not until injury time that we scored a fifth. A great run to the byline from our left back, now switched to the right, was followed by a looping cross that was nodded home by one of our midfielders.
5-2. Three points. Goal difference in our favour. Now we were only one point from safety with three games to play. It was a huge relief. We have real hope to stay up. The have that threat hanging over you is not nice. We have given ourselves a real fighting chance and now I can’t wait to play our next games. We could be waiting a while, as two of those games are against one club who have a fixture backlog. The team in 10th place have a horrible run in in their final four games with matches against each of the top three teams. So I don’t expect them to make up 6 points to overtake ourselves and the team in 8th. As for our defeated opponents, they have a less difficult run in but one game against 1st placed Salthill Devon. They could have one potential winnable game against a team above us in 7th. They are currently on 13 points but if they don’t make the most of their fixture back-log then they too could get sucked into this battle. Most importantly, however, is that we are still alive, everything is to play for.
The Great Escape is On!
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