Old Boys Make Life Tough At The Top

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31363, 8 May 1967, Page 10

Old Boys Make Life Tough At The Top

High School Old Boys may have no chance themselves of winning the Hurley Shield senior soccer championship but they are making things extremely difficult for the two top teams. Ten days ago they aided Christchurch City’s quest for the title by holding New Brighton to a 2-2 draw; on Saturday, they did a good turn to Brighton by drawing 2-2 with City.

By their mighty deeds Old Boys have left the championship wide open after the first full round of the competition.

City is now only one point ahead of Brighton, and as long as things continue to go steadily, if not always smoothly, for the two leaders, the championship is building up to a tremendous climax when the two clubs meet in their return match.

Technical and Western, each winning narrowly—Technical with a goal only three minutes from the end against Shamrock—complete the top half of the table, waiting only for the leading pair to slip so that they can burst through with a challenge at the end. Old Boys have moved up into fifth place and luckless Rangers have dropped to sixth after their fourth successive defeat Rangers had four players injured before Saturday, lost three more in their match against New Brighton and finished the game with only nine men. The struggle at the bottom of the table remains among Shamrock and Shirley-No-mads, and their return match in the future will be as vital as the prospective clash between City and Brighton.

Best At Long Odds Win, lose or draw, Old Boys consistently produce an exciting brand of football, and the bigger the odds, the greater the performance this young team exhibits. They were a little unlucky not to take two points from Brighton; they might have had two from City; but the end result was another match full of crisp, clean football. Only the goals in Saturday’s main match of the day were below the standard of the rest of the play, from T. Haydon’s trickling shot in the early minute that K. Samson let through open legs to Haydon’s equaliser in the dying stages which was deflected past Samson by a defender. In between were two Old Boys’ goals, a penalty by J. McNaught, from one of the harshest decisions seen at English Park for many years, and a weak back pass by Haydon to his goal-keeper, which was snapped up by S. McAlpine and converted into a simple goal. There were other chances at both ends, McNaught missing his second penalty attempt and City failing to get in a clean shot when goals looked there for the taking. This City team is full of enigmas, its play sometimes as baffling to soccer supporters as the Mona Lisa’s smile is to art enthusiasts. The side’s potential is tremendous, its application is inconsistent. Movements break down, nine times out of 10, because of bad ball control, either from a weak pass or the inability to till the ball quickly and surely. There were half a dozen occasions on Saturday when the Old Boys defence looked to be wide open, particular# during a 15-minutes period in the second half, but City failed to come to grips with themselves. In the 19-year-old McAlpine, Old Boys have a centre-forward of rich promise, and had he received half the chances in front of goal the City forwards were given, he would have been a match winner.

Both against Brighton and City, Old Boys went through a period of uncertainty that proved less costly to them than it should have. But Samson made some fine saves, J. Mitchell was again solidly in command at centre-half, and somehow, with the help of City’s forwards, the crisis was averted.

Lot Of HI Luck New Brighton took the field against Rangers determined to improve on last week’s performance and so get back into the championship race. For Rangers, who had already announced four team changes through Injury, It turned out to be an afternoon of hard-fight-ing soccer for little reward but a lot of ill luck. There was no doubt as the final whistle sounded with the score 7-1 to Brighton that Rangers were a well-beaten side.

But the game had riot started that way. In the opening minutes Rangers’ forwards looked full of aggression but were unable to find a shot to trouble a very competent D. Phillips in the Brighton goal. It was from the break-up of a Rangers attack that Phillips’s clearance found R. Elston and two passes later N. Robinson had set up G. Spiers to drive high into the net and open the scoring.

From then on the first half developed into a keen struggle but the edge was always with Brighton because their halves gave better service to the forwards, thus enabling them to pentrate deeper into opposition territory. There were many attempts on the Rangers goal but not until ithe forty-second minute when a K. Morgan’s header thudded against the bar did a goal seem imminent. The second goal eventually came when an accidental-look-ing hand ball was penalised and Brighton was awarded a spot kick from which K. France scored. Within a minute W. Quirke had made it 3-0. Rangers were playing a substitute for the centre-half, R. Binns, had left the field injured before half-time, then with two minutes of the second half gone K. Smythe was hurt in a collision, he too, left the field and later had seven stitches inserted in a eut above his upper lip. Brighton now took complete control and added four more goals. Spiers completed a splendid hat-trick. Grance converted another penalty and Quirke made it seven with a fine header.

Rangers managed to pull back a goal from P. Pendrey in the seventy-first minute, but when the outside-right, Doorenbal, had to change positions with the goalkeeper, G. Chellew, the third injured Rangers’ player, they were never able to bring much pressure on the Brighton defence and played out time holding Brighton to its seven goals. Technical Extended The luck of the Irish was not with Shamrock when they met Technical at Ensors road. Throughout the match the tempo of the game was very fast and full marks went to both sides for the manner in which it was played. Tecnical was fully extended and had to produce two fine movements in the second half before it was able to claim victory. The strength of Technical’s play was in midfield where C. Jones and W. Blows made many openings for the forwards, often nullified by a resolute defence.

I. Marshall, In the Technical goal, was not called on to save many difficult shots, attributable in part to Shamrock not being able to burst its way through and in part to good cover defence.

However there was a difference in the way Technical cleared its lines with long clearances, to the way that the Shamrock defenders played their way out of trouble, and it was in this department that the losers really shone. All five defenders marked as a unit and also provided a good backing for the forwards. The chances that came the way of Shamrock’s forwards were few but had they been accepted a draw would have been the result. i On the ofher hand. Technical’s forwards capitalised on their attacks and this was the difference in those departments. A. Dawe and P. Kay scored for Technical, W T . Yates for Shamrock. Scrappy, Untidy Play There was little football of the standard expected from senior teams in the match between Western and ShirleyNomads at Western Park. Both produced scrappy, untidy play, and only a few individual performances, the one goal scored and Shirley’s improved play lifted the game off the ground. Western made the elementary mistake of carrying the ball into trouble, instead of using a colleague to beat an opponent. But its failings went further than that, because too often when a player was in trouble, there was not a colleague in an open space to whom he could look for help. Although struggling at the foot of the table, Shirley relied far more than did Western on team-work to penetrate the opposition defence, and its attacks were given far greater support than Western’s. E. Rice, at centre-forward, was a lively leader and laid the ball off well, giving the former Nomads centre-half, G. Donaldson, a lively match. The goal that won the match for Western came late In the game and was the one real movement of the match. It began deep in Western’s defence by J. Traquire. the ball moving from D. Bussey to P. Frost, who placed it’past the centrehalf for D. Torkington to move through and fire a great shot into the top left-hand corner of the net. D. Spraggs had to make two magnificent saves to prevent Nomads scoring, and was twice helped when the ball was driven over the bar from good positions.

Results: H.S.O.B. L City 2 Brighton 7, Rangers 1. Western Shirley 0 Technical 2. Shamrock 1. Goals p W D L F Pts City 7 5 2 0 29 11 12 Bright. 7 5 1 1 21 9 11 Tech, 7 4 1 2 17 9 9 West. ,ji 7 4 1 2 13 10 9 H.S.O.B. 7 2 2 3 11 12 6 Rang. .7 3 6 4 11 27 6 Shir. 7 0 2 5 5 18 2 Sham. 7 0 1 6 11 22 1