Post by Dave on Sept 15, 2010 15:45:24 GMT
Ipplepen V Abbotskerswell 28th August 2010
I really have enjoyed this afternoon so much after a rather stressful week, is there anything better than watching a good local game of football that had six goals in it that was so exciting to watch and then driving home in the car with the radio on for a nail biting ride back to Paignton hoping Torquay would hold onto their lead and make it four wins out of four.
I have never seen Ipplepen go behind by three goals so early in the first half in all the games I have watched them play, but even at that score line I felt they were still very much in the game and would get level and might even go onto win the match. They may well have done that if Ant could have got his last minute header inside the post, but at the end of the day I felt a draw was a fair result.
The game was only two minutes old when an Abbotskerswell player took a shot from all of 30 yards that sailed over the Ipplepen keeper giving Abbotskerswell the lead. The Ipplepen defenders were so often guilty of not clearing the ball choosing instead to try and pass the ball out of defence with the result they kept losing the ball. They did it out wide on the left hand side and had the ball stolen off them and the Abbotskerswell winger just ran and headed for the box and blasted the ball high into the roof of the net.
It happened again and this time the winger headed toward the corner flag before tuning infield and playing a perfect ball along the six yard line that reached the far post where an Abbotskerswell player was waiting to fire the ball home. Righty the Ipplepen manager was not best pleased and made a substitution in the midfield that worked and started the Ipplepen fight back.
The ball was played into the Abbotskerswell box and got headed on and Ant was a yard or so past the far post, the ball came to him with his back to goal and he cleverly swivelled and hit a cracking left foot volley from a very tight angle that crashed against the underside of the crossbar and bounced on the goal line, as the ball bounced back up his strike partner had the simplest of headers to pull a goal back.
Ant then forced a good save out of the Abbotskerswell player and then his strike partner hit a good shot from the edge of the box that also hit the underside of the crossbar and ended up being cleared out of the area. A few minutes later he took a shot from 25 yards that went over the top of the stranded Abbotskerswell keeper and into the roof of the net, game on now and it was only a matter of when Ipplepen would get goal number three.
The ref blew for half time and time for me to check the forum on my phone, only the sun was rather bright and I struggled to read the posts but I was able to read enough to know that while the record had ended, we were winning by two goals to one.
So onto the second half and Ipplepen just gave Abbotskerswell far to much room to play the ball out wide on both flanks and had to deal with a number of balls played into their box that they dealt with well. Ipplepens centre half got a nasty head wound and had to go off to get it dressed and came back on looking like Terry Butcher, but it did not stop him winning many important headers.
At the other end Ipplepen were getting the ball forward much better but failing to make those killer balls for Ant and his strike partner to get on. Then a ball was played way to far in front of Ant and the keeper looked the favourite to get to the ball first, but Ant had his head down and running at full pace and just got to the ball first. By then the keeper was right on top of him and was able to block the shot but the ball came off him and hit Ant taking the ball past the keeper who was lying on the floor. Ant sprinted past him and just walked the ball into the empty net.
Both teams had good chances to win the game right at the death, Ant had made a good run out wide on the left hand side beating his man and laying the ball on a plate for an Ipplepen player to score from around the penalty spot, the moment went to his head and he blasted his shot well over the crossbar.
Then an Abbotskerswell player raced into the Ipplepen box with just the keeper to beat who had already started to go down, he really should have scored but his shot was poor and sailed past the left hand post.
Ant was to have the last chance and is rather upset he missed it as it would have given Ipplepen the three points and would have rounded off the perfect come back. To be fair as my pictures show, the ball was coming in very low and slightly behind him and he had to lean back and stoop very low to get his head on the ball, I thought it was going in but it just missed the right hand post.
The final whistle and time to get to my car and in the car park was a man on his mobile trying to get an update on our game, he was complaining the signal was poor and it must have been as when I shouted over to him and asked him what the score was he told me we were winning by three goals to one.
So I drove out of the car park thinking the TUFC result was in the bag only to learn a short while later it was still two one with ten minutes to go. Boy did I shout out at the top of my voice as I got to Totnes when the ref blew the final whistle, sure has been a great afternoon.
