Comeback kids secure emphatic win

20th Nov 2009

Dave Bel­lis attacks in the first-half. Photo: Tom Flathers

Men’s Foot­ball 1st:

Birm­ing­ham

v

Man­ches­ter

4 — 2

IN an exhil­a­rat­ing six-goal thriller, the bat­tle between the uni­ver­si­ties of England’s sec­ond and third cities saw Birmingham’s Men’s 1st XI foot­ball team twice come from behind to even­tu­ally beat Manchester’s 1st XI on the Ath­let­ics Track pitch. It was cer­tainly a game of two halves for Birm­ing­ham who were snail-like out of the blocks. How­ever, an inspired sub­sti­tu­tion and a tac­ti­cal change at the break from coach Chris Wright would help the home side to dom­i­nate the sec­ond half’s pro­ceed­ings and go on to earn a well-deserved victory.

Birmingham’s injury-ravaged team, once again with­out long-term absen­tee and club cap­tain, Sammy Ross, seemed to be left shaken after last week’s two-nil home defeat at the hands of Lough­bor­ough and could have eas­ily found them­selves a cou­ple of goals behind inside the first 25 minutes.

The away team had begun doggedly and pressed high up the pitch, Thionn Hart’s and Calum Botham’s abil­ity on the ball and direct run­ning caus­ing per­pet­ual prob­lems down both the Birm­ing­ham flanks. After only five min­utes Man­ches­ter had won a free-kick on the edge of their opponent’s area, but a fine save by Simon Lynn down to his left thwarted Bobby Lloyd’s well-struck effort.

On 15 min­utes goal­keeper Lynn’s inde­ci­sion left him stranded by the cor­ner flag; the low cross into the box even­tu­ally fell to Botham, grand­son of the leg­endary Ian, who, with the goal gap­ing, inex­plic­a­bly hit the out­side of the post.

Man­ches­ter forged out yet another clear-cut chance as right back Chris Birch’s cen­tre found Steve Hall on the penalty spot. His shot, though, bob­bled the wrong side of Lynn’s left-hand post.

With the game threat­en­ing to run away from them Birm­ing­ham finally estab­lished some sort of foothold, respond­ing to coach Wright’s pleas for them to ‘start play­ing foot­ball’, and man­aged to cre­ate a num­ber of chances. All of these were, how­ever, left squan­dered, num­ber nine Adam Farn­worth the cul­prit on almost every occa­sion. All in all, it was a mis­er­able first half for the Birm­ing­ham striker who strug­gled to lead the line with any effectiveness.

Manchester’s break­through finally came on 36 min­utes. Hart’s whipped near-post cor­ner was met acro­bat­i­cally by cen­tral defender Tom Birch, whose header flew into the roof of the net. The North­west side’s assis­tant coach’s need­less provoca­tive cel­e­bra­tion, directly in front of the Birm­ing­ham bench, enraged Chris Wright and pro­vided the home team with some much-needed fire in the belly for the remain­der of the half.

At half-time Stu­art Lester, the Man­ches­ter coach, warned his team against com­pla­cency and Birmingham’s most dan­ger­ous attack­ing threat: the diag­o­nal balls ‘pinged in’ off the Mid­land team’s left flank. Despite lead­ing, he launched a tirade of crit­i­cism at his play­ers for hav­ing let con­trol of the game slip, sin­gling out Robert Sis­sons, the ex-Bolton Wan­der­ers mid­fielder. Lester knew that his team needed to main­tain the level they had per­formed at in the open­ing period of the match if they were going to take all three points.

How­ever, Man­ches­ter would strug­gle as Birm­ing­ham started the sec­ond half with gusto and a desire to play their foot­ball the way it should be; on the floor. Wright switched to a 4–3-3 and brought on Joe Daw­son to act as the cen­tral prong in attack, a move which saw James Secker move off the left flank and into cen­tral midfield.

With only five min­utes of the half gone, Birm­ing­ham had already carved out two great chances. Although off­side, Sam Youngs hit the post after being slot­ted in between the full-back and centre-back. Sec­onds later, Farn­worth, much-improved after the inter­val, was unable to get his shot away in the six-yard box as oppo­si­tion goal­keeper, Will Jones, was quick to close down the space.

Birm­ing­ham pegged their North­west rivals back and the match, in sharp con­trast to the open­ing 45 min­utes, was being played exclu­sively in Manchester’s half. Wright wanted his team to dic­tate the game’s pace and was insis­tent on them main­tain­ing the fast rhythm of play they had begun to display.

Secker’s drilled cross eluded Daw­son at the back post and Farn­worth once again mis­con­trolled to let another half-chance go beg­ging. Birmingham’s equaliser, though, did finally arrive. Youngs slipped Daw­son through and the sub­sti­tute con­fi­dently slid the ball under the oncom­ing Jones.

Man­ches­ter, real­is­ing that they had taken their foot off the pedal, stepped up their game. A hoof from the back was poorly dealt with in the Birm­ing­ham defence and sub­sti­tute Rob Guppy stole in, rolling the ball across the goal-line despite a des­per­ate attempted hooked clear­ance from Birm­ing­ham cap­tain Jay Cordell.

Birmingham’s dom­i­nance, how­ever, would reap its rewards and the home side came from behind yet again to draw level. In a goal of superb qual­ity, Dawson’s chest down on the edge of the area was col­lected by right winger, Dave Bel­lis, who shim­mied past one man before lash­ing the ball into to the top left-hand cor­ner of the net to the delight of the home support.

On the teams’ respec­tive benches it seemed to be a case of scream when you’re win­ning, Lester’s and Wright’s lev­els of ani­ma­tion reflect­ing the blow-for-blow flow of the game.

How­ever, as the match entered its final stages, only one team looked capa­ble of vic­tory. With just five min­utes remain­ing, a sweep­ing move started with Deemin play­ing in Farn­worth down the left; he cut onto his right foot and flighted an inch-perfect ball to Sam Youngs who had eluded his marker; a great first touch and a fin­ish to match gave Birm­ing­ham the lead for the first time in the game.

At the death, Birm­ing­ham were handed the chance to put the game beyond all doubt. A Man­ches­ter defender was adjudged to have han­dled in the box after per­sis­tent play from mid­fielder Dan Hen­ton. Youngs, under the flood­lights of the clock tower end, slot­ted the penalty home for his sec­ond goal of the match.

Before the game Lester had said that if Man­ches­ter were to lose they would be ‘left with­out a pad­dle’, and that is cer­tainly the case now as they find them­selves stranded at the bot­tom of the BUCS North Pre­mier Division.

How­ever, Wright was under­stand­ably delighted with his side’s efforts to secure the cru­cial win: ‘In the sec­ond half we played the way we know we can. Our heads were down after last week’s defeat but the team rose to the chal­lenge today and showed great char­ac­ter to claim victory.’