Well what a cracker ! It was one of those midweek games where I didn't really fancy it. My mates were either not drinking or missing altogether, the weather was poor and worse was forecast , the crowd was going to be small and we would most likely lose. Three times during the day when I pointed all or some of the above to my wife she said 'well don't go then / why bother going" and 3 times I replied that it is what I do.Anyway off to ER I went with more trepidation than hope in my heart and the team news did not fill me with confidence as far as excitement went but did give me hope of a point. Morison up front on his own, or the centre forward who has never scored , as I described him, with Mowatt coming in to bolster midfield in place of the other attacker (Antenucci)We took the kick off and the ball was passed to Cook who went back towards our goal before giving it the one outfield player we have who does not like having the ball, Wooton and he kicked it into touch. A really auspicious start I thought, but from that moment on we played really well, 100% commitment and effort coupled with some lovely fluent passing. We really got stuck into them disrupting their rhythm and not giving them time to play. When we had the ball we had some lovely triangles and played lots of balls up to Morison who won most of them , holding the ball up well and bringing others into play. Twice Austin had shots from good positions that flew past the post (and into the Sky sports adverts two away from the goal as my mate pointed out) Murphy had a tremendous right foot shot that the keeper did well to save, and one ball across the box to Mowatt somehow did not go in. We were looking good against the league leaders. Then we got the goal our play deserved when Austin played it into Murphy who took it on and unleashed a left footed thunderbolt into the corner - unstoppable. A great goal and well deserved. Could we hold on or even build on it ? Well from that moment on we rode our luck to a certain extent, firstly they scored what seemed like the equaliser but the offside flag went up , then a couple of shots went right across between our posts before Silverstri dived on it - hard to tell if the ball crossed the line but the lino said no. So we ended the half one up and good value for it but clinging on a bit. Second half was more of the same, we started ok with Morison our man of the match and Murphy starting to show why we paid £1m for him in the thick of it. Austin revelled in his forward roll ably assisted by Byram, Mowatt and the talent that is Lewis Cook - on one occasion he just glided past 3 defenders and played a sublime ball into Bryam whose cross we just failed to convert. Another lovely move ended with Austin blasting wide a shot from a daft tight angle when a cross into the six yard box would have reaped rewards. Morison even had a chance to get on the scoresheet as he ran onto a through ball but before he could get to it (and hammer it home) he was cynically brought down - defender lucky to get only a yellow. It was by no means one way traffic though and at times we were chasing shadows as Bournemouth kept the ball for long periods and even cut us open on a few occasions - on another day they could have had 3 or 4. Things got tougher for us when Morison started limping and had to be subbed - Billy Sharp tried hard but did not have the same prescence- I really think that once Morison gets his first goal he will be a real favourite- thats how good he had started to play. Could we hold on as legs began to tire and the snow began to fall. Roared on by the hardy 17k the team stuck manfully to their task but the worry was there , that if Bournemouth got one they could go on and win it. Then near disaster their man ran at our defence chased forlornly by Bellusci and a couple of defenders - down he went, out came the red card, inside or outside the box we wondered - in said the ref and pointed to the spot. I heard later that this was wrong, so when the penalty was blasted over the bar justice was done. After 4 mins of injury time the whistle went and we had hung on to win 1 0.Overall a deserved win but I will understand it if their lot claim they should have taken at least a point with the chances they had, but we deserved our bit of good fortune and some of our play was really good and worthy of 3 pointsSo a great game of football and a great result - am I glad I went - you betcha Dave _______________________________________________ Leedslist mailing list Info and options: http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist To unsubscribe, email [email protected]
John 'Grampa' Sykes Rest In Peace old lad 28th Oct 1938 - 12 Nov 2013 MARCHING ON TOGETHER
