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Misato, Sat 15th February.
After a full day of rain on the Friday the omens were not looking good for this 2nd Round cup game against the Celts which had already had 2 previous cancellations once due to snow and the other due to gale force winds. Late on Friday night the message went out the game was almost certainly going to be cancelled (96.7% chance of cancellation read the skippers e-mail) - some took this as a green light to get on it in a big way - others reasoned that the 3.3% chance of it being on was enough of a possibility that the slippers should stay firmly on. How right the optimists were, because Saturday morning came around and it was warm, bright and wonderfully sunny - it was game on at the third time of asking.
Late drop outs and a variety of excuses meant that the BFC turned up with the bare 11 with a 12 man (Evans) making his way from Kawasaki were he had allegedly spent the night in a phone box (I didn’t know they had phone boxes in Japan but the obviously do in Kawasaki!) with a bloke called Allen. The BFC started with a reasonably familiar line up except for stand in goal-keeper Jude and new boy Keisuke making his debut up front. The message before the game was clear - get up them and at them early on and that is exactly want the BFC did - we were first to the ball and put in some firm tackles when needed. The opening goal came from a free-kick on the left - swung in by Garry and expertly headed home by in-form Neil Collins. BFC arguably could have had a second but the ball was harshly judged to have gone out of play in the build up having been expertly driven home by Jon Day after a great cut back from Keisuke.
So 1-0 at half-time and the BFC knew they would have to step up their game in the second half. That is exactly what happened - the passing improved, the movement got better and the finishing was top drawer. Jon stole in to flick a header over the keeper for number 2 and a hand ball from a dangerously in-swinging free kick from Day resulted in a penalty which Neil trundled in to the corner for number 3. Number 4 was the pick of the bunch with slide rule pass from Pablo that split the defence and played in Jon who outpaced the left-back and lifted the ball to the far post to the waiting Keisuke who rose Pele-esque to power home the header (the height this lad can jump is ridiculous).
With 10 minutes remaining Evans eventually turned up fresh from his 5 hour trip from Kawasaki to replace Shosuke who ended the day with a visit to the hospital having been repeatedly lumped, in fact I think the Celts kicked him more times than the kicked the ball, although from my stand point the first and worst was definitely accidental. Anyway Evans made an immediate impact with his direct running and shooting, on his third attempt the keeper spilled the ball and Pablo showed great anticipation to be the first to react, beating the keeper and slotting home from a tight angle into an empty net. The final score of 5-0 was an accurate reflection on the game which the BFC dominated, not only attacking well as a team but also defending well as a team. This was reflected not only in the score line but the fact that Jude despite playing well and commanding his area when required, only had one half hearted long range free kick to deal with in terms of shots on target. Also Keisuke made a very impressive debut up front with some excellent running on and off the ball, tireless tracking back and a great finish. Hopefully they will both get another chance to prove themselves in the future. And so we headed home - which will probably go down was one of the longest journeys of my life - I will save the details but it was a comedy of errors. Roll on the next round of the cup (against the Swiss) and roll on the next league game……...
Report by Dr Phil Lowes
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