windsor 3 mole valley 2

[mattwefc]

right il start from the beginning, started relatively brightly and created several chances. mv were bailed out by their keeper on several occasions, often atoning for his errors to make some excellent blocks. took the lead on the break of half time, jake from the outside the box hitting one low that went under the keeper.

mv came out strong in the second half and a cracking side footed finish to level it up but it came after the mv defender pulled the ball back from the line with his arm at a corner. it seemed mv went up the other end and scored right away!

we tried to pass the ball in several times, and had several wayward efforts before their number 11 scored an absolute beauty in to the top corner with 5 or so mins of normal time to play.

windsor though rallied really well, and all of a sudden wanted it more, and less than a minute later otoole fired home from just inside the area for 2 each. windsor kept pressing and the winner came from chenns, who was put in by otoole before holding it up to turn the defender and fire home with almost the last kick of the game.

 

a harsh result on mole valley in all honesty but a cracking result from windsor's point of view. mv probably deserved a draw but in the end we just had enough to crawl over the line and get 3 very valuable points!

 

i would say im struggling to see how mv are where they are in the league, as they have played very well against us in both games this season. the number 11 was a handfull all game and their keeper was dependable when it mattered!

[Teflon]

Here's,y view as a neutral.

 

Tthought overall MV deserved a point and as a few you the Windsor supporters said to me they could not believe their league position on the performance.

 

Agree regarding the ref, he did make some strange decisions for both sides throughout the game and I thought credit to both sets of players for keeping there calm and trying to get on with the game.

 

Mv keeper did make some excellant saves in the 1st half and you could see he was having an insired performance, little slow down for the Windsor opening goal just before halftime but a good strike from the no 7, another day for the visitors they could have been well clear at the break with the saves and a least one goal line clearence in the 1st half.

 

MV equalise 6 mins into 2nd period and both team I thought looked to play football and take the game to each other, MV take the lead with a great finish from the No 11 who impressed me all game long, but Windsor equalise within minutes through the no 10 (I think) and Windsor had a few good chances after this with Mv keeper making another great save and another header cleared off the line, after MV had a good chance at the other end Winsor break in the dieing momentsand get the winner through no 9 Chennels. (92 min I made it ).

 

Impressed by the MV no 11, Windsor's No's 7,8,& 10 and also what a throw the Windsor 5 has ....amazing !! Windsor keeper did not have a great deal to do but cant say I was overly impressed with him.

 

MV did try and run the clock down but did not think the ref played more than usual added on time in either half, with injuries & subs I made it about 94 mins the game finished but was my time keeping and other may have different timing, am sure Brigger will advise if I got the time of the winner wrong.

 

MV supporters complained like made at the officials at the end of the game and shame there was a little bit of mouthing off by a very few supporters from both side.

 

First time i'd seen Windsor and dont think this was a great performance from them not wishing to take anything away from MV who I thought matched their opponents today. Enjoyable game !!

[Rother]

I think I've said before that I find the "deserved a point" subject interesting / debatable...

 

Mole Valley were decent, certainly a good deal better than some other teams we have thrashed this season, but although they did score 2 cracking goals, apart from the 3 we scored we had 3 goal line clearances, 3 or 4 worldy saves and, at times, were camped in their half... plus I actually don't remember Bully making a single save (probably my dodgy memory I expect?).

 

Anyway, here's some video highlights. Didn't get our 2nd and 3rd as power was low, netting got in the way and sometimes you just want to put 100% into supporting rather than videoing!

 

http://youtu.be/gRJI7zNTHRI

[Rother]

Here's a blog report on the game...

 

I think the writer is a little confused in places. I trust he enjoys the football and facilities on display at The Emirates rather more than yesterday's experience. Slumming it says it all. His heart really isn't in non-league football.

 

http://slummingitgro...-2-v-3-windsor/

 

Life is full of contrasts. Take footballing facilities, in the Surrey town of Cobham you can find at one extreme the grandiose training facilities of Chelsea FC (Cobham Training Centre. In the same town exists Anvil Lane, the ground of an 120 year old football club, Cobham. Also using that facility is Mole Valley SCR (Sutton Common Road to you which reflects the part of the world the club originated from). A more extreme contrast in facilities you could not imagine but more on the Anvil Lane (or Leg O’ Mutton field depending on who you talk to) later.

Of all the glamorous games I could pick on FA Cup third round Saturday you might think Mole Valley v Windsor a bit of a strange choice and to be honest if I wasn’t off to the Emirates on Monday I probably wouldn’t have chosen it. But with Cobham being on a bus route from where I live (even if that route does include all the side and back streets of Thames Ditton and Esher) it seemed reasonable to tick off the place.

Arriving close to kick-off I approached Anvil lane from through a park. A well-known large countryside park (Painshill) can be seen in the distance. The outside of the ground is very step 5 and 6, rutted track (with a railed off path area), thin green netting on the outside of a long row of conifers. Eventually you spot a gap in the side which is the entrance, no turnstile as such. £6 including a programme gets you in.

The first thing you notice about the place is how little there is. The bar/tea-bar/changing rooms/bogs are in the same building, a kind of dilapidated wooden building behind one of those compulsory short metal stands I have grown to both love and detest this season. Across the other side was nothing except two brick dug-outs. Behind one goal was a short lean-too which seemed to be acting as a storage unit for some planks and behind the other was the aforementioned conifers with a small flat standing area, a small scaffold bit and some netting which slighty obscured the view from there (although to be fair only Windsor fans went into that section second half). It all looks a bit shabby, a cross between the cobbled together look of Raynes Park Vale with the facilities free greenery of Colliers Wood United! None of this is of course a reflection on Mole Valley SCR, they are jus tenants in someone elses neglected home.

As the teams lined up I scanned the crowd, about 65 I thought with over 50% being away fans and once you took out the kids and the home teams coaching staff (more of in a minute) there wasn’t 10 home fans in attendance! Given that Windsor are challenging for the title and Mole Valley are bottom I expected a mismatch, a possibility that looked a certainty when you compared the respective physical sizes of the two teams, Windsor (W) were clearly larger and older than Mole Valley (MV). It is also at this point I will reference the referee (more on him as a sideshow later); normally I wouldn’t comment on appearance or speculate on background but when someone looks like a cross between Terrance Trent Darby and Dwight Yorke I think you can assume they are from South London!

The first half was a shocker, a real shocker. Even in terms of how poor both sides were but with Windsor creating the better chances, to the extent that the stand-out player on the pitch was MV’s large porky goalie. Some W fans were speculating that the sun was affecting their teams play, from where I was it more looked like they couldn’t get motivated for it. The highlight of the first 40 minutes was the sheer amount of shouting and advice giving from the sidelines, in W’s case from groaning never stop talking supporters and in MV’s case a series of blokes bellowing all kinds of tactical advice (I was to learn second half that the main culprits were the manager and other club official who were in constant phone contact with those in the dug-outs). The last 5 minutes banged into life, the MV goalie pulled off a couple of miracle (well for this level) saves and then just before HT (seemed about 50 minutes to me) a goal from nowhere to W.

Headed into the bar/tea-bar and the sight of no proper beer, not even bottles added to a feeling of irritation. The bogs looking like the roof was about to fall in (and with me still wary after the Tilbury experience) didn’t help either but to be fair I suddenly started to see what the MV club was all about. Take the people away from the Cobham facilities and what you have is a bunch of working class southern’s doing their best. Ok so the food wasn’t much cop but it was cheap and plentiful and the multi-tasking volunteers were friendly.

Went out for the second half expecting the worst, found myself by accident between the MV manager and his “team” of tactical advisors and the referee’s assessor. The MV manager had a lot to say, to his mates, on the phone to the dug-out, to the linesman and referee, to his players. He was on the go the whole 45 (or more like 52) minutes. The game itself was the classic game of two half, the quality didn’t markedly improve but a combination of endeavour and a growing competitive edge made it more and more interesting. MV got back into the game with a decent finish and they started to play more football. W suddenly started to look like Stoke City, all long throws and dead-balls. To be fair they did think they had got a second before the equalizer but it wasn’t given and let’s be clear no amount of technology will ever be used at Anvil Lane! The referee’s cameo comedy decision-making, nothing game changing but nevertheless memorable (my favourite was when the MV right-bank did an airshot and fell over, with the W player about 3 feet away and the ref gave a foul, even the MV manager was rolling around in laughter).

With 10 minutes to go W got a second, with a curler, which they celebrated wildly and you wondered if that was the winner, but wait, within a minute 2-2 with another good finish and another wild celebration, this time the whole team headed for the manager and his bunch, I though I was going to get pulled into the melee! You couldn’t help but get dragged into the emotion MV generated as the self-belief grew. the game became end to end, the MV manager could sense someone was going to win this, alas with the 90th minute well gone it was W who got a MV heart-breaking winner. As the final whistle blew I just turned to him and said “unlucky” and he gave me back one of those polite slimes that say “thanks but I’d rather have taken the point”.

Sometimes when I travel to these relatively local to me grounds I wonder why some clubs keep on going and it would be easy to point at the likes of Mole Valley and say “what is the point” (especially given the relocation). However maybe on this occasion I can let that thought pass, they are clearly going down (have played over 50 players in the first-team already), Anvil Lane is clearly only going to get worse (apparently there are plans to move to Weston Green which is interesting, maybe they can merge with the Sports and become Thames Ditton United) but so long as the committment and drive shown by their players/coaching staff/volunteers and few supporters continues then they are a welcome presence. As for Windsor, if somehow they beat Guildford City to that one promotion place then they need a new squad!

And so to Arsenal and the mighty Leeds United next. From Anvil Lane to Ashburton Grove in 2 days, now that is extremes.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Rother

[Rother]

Oh and I wasn't going to comment on the blogger's Terence Trent D'Arby / Dwight Yorke "gag" but reading it again, dear oh dear oh dear. Shameful stuff.

[Briggers]

Hi Rother

 

As you say, pretty shameful stuff - strange that someone should come down to non league grounds and expected Premier Division quality.

 

Also found the "discount the kids" comments as fans as strange - obviously when the attendance is tallied at the Emirates they don't count the kids - and as the majority of our kids were part of our Colts set up, they would no doubt have been vocal and supportive.

 

I can understand your "deserved a point" comment - obviously percentage of play / chances created etc, you would have said we deserved nothing out of the game, but from an MV point of view, looking at cold hard facts - we are bottom, you have an excellent chance of winning the league - if we tried to take the game to you, with O'Toole and Chennells, you would probably have slaughtered us.

 

The deserved a point probably comes from the effort our lads put in, the throwing bodies on the line type of spirit, and i would guess our keeper and our second goal didn't deserve to be on the losing side.

 

Anyway - without the MV hat on, i thought it was a cracking game, and if i was a neutral (and not a Premier League is all person), i would have been more than happy with the £6 spent.

 

Here are a few pics from the game (not great i am afraid, must have been nervous because of the crowd).

 

 

Good luck for the rest of the season

[Rother]

Cheers Briggers, and same to you guys - I hope you get a run going. (And I totally accept your take on the "deserved a point" point.)

 

What was the crowd? Looked a fair bit more than the 60 the blogger counted.

[Briggers]

We had it down as 86 - which wasn't to bad - nice for our lads to have a bit of an atmosphere to play in (normally we are lucky if we get 30)

[Big J R]

We had it down as 86 - which wasn't to bad - nice for our lads to have a bit of an atmosphere to play in (normally we are lucky if we get 30)

 

CORRECT, accorfing to the League....

 

 

Mole Valley SCR Windsor 2-3 86

Edited January 11, 2012 by Big J R

[Don't Blame Me]

Considerably more realistic than some attendances that have been recorded. And I agree with Briggers completely about the atmosphere. I think it makes it more enjoyable.

[Windsor_Sec]

Don't know how you copy it on to here but have a look at the photo IMG_4613 as Bully seems to have lost his head and is trying to find it on the floor. LOL.

[Don't Blame Me]

You have a vivid imagination Steve. Hope you noticed that my cap kept a clean sheet in the first half.