Sat 17-04-2010 - Fulbourn 1st Team 1v0 CUP (H)
A sunny afternoon with no biting North wind and a cup-final sized crowd greeted Cambridge University Press who are top of the heap at present. This was a “must win” game if Fulbourn want to stay in the title hunt.
For a change the home side started very strongly knowing they could not afford to play their way in slowly as the tend to do with lesser sides They definitely raised their game and had the best of the scoring chances for the first quarter of an hour but Press began to settle down and play a good passing game thereafter. Having said that, Buster was hardly troubled in goal with just the odd shot straight at him and a few high crosses which he dealt with confidently. Fulbourn’s back four were playing some great defending football and they protected the goal from every attack making it look easy against the alleged best team in the league.
The half finished with honours even at 0-0 but everybody agreed it was the best 45 minutes we had seen all season and we could hardly wait for the lads to get stuck in again.
The second half started of with a couple of rather reckless tackles and some pushing and shoving but it was to be expected with so much at stake and both sides striving to get the upper hand.
Fulbourn began to play some sparkling football with quick inter –passing and a couple of jinking runs from “Bullet” Baxter and Joey who was having a really good game tying their defenders in knots. At times the visitor’s defending was desperate and the goalmouth incidents came thick and fast but no one could really get a clean strike on goal. Meanwhile Press had a few forays up the other end but there was still not much to bother our keeper.
Then after 20 minutes another corner was floated in by Baxter and in the resulting mêlée it was Elmo who got his foot to the ball and poked the ball over the line. There were frantic calls that the ball had not crossed the line as their keeper tried to make the save but the linesman was quite emphatic; goal stands Matt Glass came on for Jake and it was Fulbourn who were still were the dominant side
Press had a short spell of sweeping moves switching the ball from one side to the other but everyone stayed focused and concentration did not waver
Ben went off and top scorer John Fear came on for the last 15 minutes to keep up the pressure on Press who were beginning to look very tired. Apart from an almost identical incident to the goal we scored from another Fulbourn corner there was not much to report in the last 10 minutes and the game finished with the two teams separated by the single goal.
This was the best match seen on the rec. for a long time between two excellent teams who both defended brilliantly and nearly cancelled each other out but we definitely had the edge when it mattered. It is a big ask to win the remaining seven matches which will be required for us to take the league title once again but after today’s performance it’s definitely possible.
Dave Bradford