Icarus Vets Squad v Crawley Green Vets

Fresh from our sobering drubbing three weeks previously, the Masters turned out in force to play Crawley Green Vets on the ‘hallowed turf’ of Weston Park.  On paper, we looked to have a strong side with welcome additions of Bowds between the sticks, Arnie Arnisson, Richy Lowe and Gaz Evans all seconded into defence.  We began with a 3-5-2 formation to attempt to gain a better foothold in midfield than we had the previous match.
 
We expected the early onslaught and Crawley didn’t disappoint with continuous probing down our flanks and heavy pressure in the middle against Baz, Ruthers and Kev Knott.  A series of long balls up to their No10 started creating issues as free kick after free kick were awarded their way.  I can only assume he was in the sights of an Icarus sniper judging by the amount of innocuous challenges from Arnie that had him gyrating on the floor in a heap.  Fortunately, free kicks in dangerous areas invariably came to naught although we were hard-pressed at times to clear our lines, particularly with their experience and guile in meeting high balls. 
 
At the other end Schoey had a thankless task attempting to hold the ball up long-enough to bring Johnny H into the game.  When you’re continually being harassed by 2 or 3 defenders, the odds are never in your favour but Jim was at least providing an ‘out’ ball for our midfield and defence.  That said, when the ball did stick and we managed to support the front two, we began to cause problems of our own.  However, the pressure on our defence was fixing Teo and Eddie as wing-backs on the defensive rather than the offensive so support to the attack was sporadic at best. 
With the Masters toiling across the park to make headway, the tactical geniuses of Gault, Gilligan and Hyndman decided to change our formation from the touchline reverting to a 4-4-2 after about 25 mins.  This had the effect of better countering their long-balls whilst allowing us to begin building from the back.  Whilst we weren’t creating much in the way of shots on goal, neither were they and we found we were slowly clawing our way back on to possession parity.
 
Going in 0-0 at HT felt like a result but we knew we had more in the bag and had weathered the storm. We just needed to show them less respect and begin playing like we knew we could.  So it was the second half began where we left off with a tight contest across the park.  However, gradually we started coming into our own with that renowned RAF fitness paying dividends.  There must have been a 20 min period where we were definitely ‘on top’ with Crawley struggling to get out of their half.  Running by Evo on the right wing and Teo linking up with Johnny H on the left were creating opportunities for the ever-willing Ruthers in the middle and Jim up top.  There was nothing clear-cut but you could sense the game was turning in our favour with pressure soaked up in the middle of the park by Baz and Kev.  We just couldn’t get the breakthrough our pressure deserved and the game continued to be a stalemate with Crawley coming back at us once again.  A clinical interception by Rich Lowe towards the end saw him injured and substituted with Jim taking his place at the back, Gilly coming on upfront and Kev Farrell replacing the ageless Eddie in defence.
 
In truth, either side could have won it but a 0-0 FT score was probably fair.  It was a grafting performance from start to finish but against the winner of this Cup in 2 of the last 3 years, we probably would have taken it before the match.  Make no mistake, these are very tough games for the Masters against ‘true Vets’ and we should take heart from this result going into the next match.  Hopefully that’s the two most difficult teams out of the way in this Cup so onwards and upwards for 29 Oct.