Tournament
Report: - Pre-season 6-a-side.
In order
to purge ourselves of an entire summer of BBQs, ice creams and general
inactivity, we decided to take up Meon Valley Christian Fellowship’s kind
invitation and enter a team into a pre-season tournament. Unfortunately
the rest of the squad didn’t quite share this sentiment, and decided to
stay at home in bed. A few frantic phone calls later, 6 brave souls were
gathered to do battle, and a team emerged.
Duncan
Cheyne: Testwood’s heroic goalkeeper from last season. After several
hours of tactical debate……we stuck him in goal.
Marcus
Billows: As the only recognised (‘Huh?!?’-Ed) defender in the team,
we followed our common sense approach and played him……. in defence.
Graham
McClaren: As the only player capable of repeatedly running up and down
the pitch, and the only one able to turn at a faster rate than the Titanic,
Graham was played in defence too.
Grant
Angel: Testwood’s number 2 ‘keeper found himself with a new role for
the day…as a midfield blocker.
Rob Oag:
After shedding 2 stone during the summer, Rob was just happy to be reaching
full fitness (and being able to see his toes again!!!). He also played
in midfield, occasionally swapping places with….
Roger
Frapwell: Testwood’s top scorer, for the past million years….well 8
or 9 anyway. Again, call us ‘old fashioned’, but we played him up-front.
Six teams
entered the competition; 2 from Meon Valley, 3 from Kings Church, plus
ourselves so we quickly realised that there was a 1 in 6 chance of Testwood
bringing back the silverware.
Our first
game was a tricky tie against Meon ‘B’. We didn’t get into our stride very
quickly (especially Rob Oag who pulled his groin muscle when he tried to),
but battled out a 2-0 victory, with Roger Frapwell getting both goals (I
think??).
Our second
game, against Kings (pre-school?) ’C’ was slightly easier and we raced
into a 5-0 lead at half-time.
Rob Oag,
Roger Frapwell (3) and an outrageous Marcus Billows backheel were the scorers.
Grant Angel blasted in a sixth during the second half to secure the points.
Our next
game against Kings ‘B’ looked fairly tough, and after leading 2-0 we were
pulled back to 2-1 at half time. However, a goal blitz in the second half
saw us win 6-1. Rob Oag (2), Roger Frapwell (3) and Graham McClaren were
the scorers.
After three
wins out of three games, things were looking good, but the hardest two
games were to come.
Kings ‘A’
hadn’t looked that impressive in their other games, but we were well below
par for this one. In a bad tempered game, against opponents who were determined
to win by fair means or foul, we did well to defend out a 0-0 draw.
With our
100% record broken we went into the final game of the tournament against
Meon ‘A’, who had won all 4 of their matches and looked like they had some
very good players. They could afford to draw against us, but we knew we
had to beat them. The first half was very close, Duncan Cheyne made a string
of fine saves, while at the other end Frapwell and McClaren went close.
The first half ended 0-0 and the tension was mounting. Early in the second
half Roger Frapwell swung in a Testwood corner from the right, the keeper
blocked it, then juggled the ball, and end up palming it into the back
on the net for an ‘o.g.’.
Midway
through the second half a sweeping Testwood move broke down, and called
on Grant Angel to make a crunching tackle in the middle of the pitch, the
ball broke to Roger Frapwell who scored with ease. The increasingly desperate
Meon calls for a foul by Grant fell on deaf ears. After this, our opponent’s
discipline and morale disappeared quickly and our impressive defensive
organisation was enough to snuff out any attack.
Final score
2-0. We were the champions!!!!!
Stats. (All
played 5 games. Goals in brackets).
Duncan Cheyne
(GK), Marcus Billows (1), Graham McClaren (1), Grant Angel (1), Rob Oag
(3), Roger Frapwell (9)
