NATIONAL LEAGUE SOCCER United fireworks in late goal rush

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33230, 21 May 1973, Page 11

NATIONAL LEAGUE SOCCER United fireworks in late goal rush

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D. P. MANSBRIDGE)

Thei e uas a striking resemblance to Guv Fawkes’ night about the local Derby clash between Christchurch United and ® ri B^ on at English Park on Saturday. The Catherine wheel has been tacked to the fence and lit; it splutters, stutters and threatens; then dies down.

But just when everyone believes it has died and turned his back on it, the wheel bursts into life with a cascade of brilliant colours and fiery sparks. So did United spring into! action eight minutes from i the end against Brighton,; rattle in three goals in a sixminute spell, and finish a far; more convincing winner at 4-0 than had seemed likely. The win kept United at the head of the Rothmans National Soccer League and with a very healthy lead from Blockhouse Bay and Stop Out, its closest challengers. RECORD BROKEN The match was also the first this season in which Brighton had failed to score, and apart from one glorious chance going to their top goal-getter, K. Mulgrew, the seasiders never looked likely to keep that recor dnitact. ; Until the eighty-second minute and the start of United’s belated burst of scoring, Christchurch had no right to feel confident about the outcome. It led only by an own goal Inadvertently scored by the Brighton centrehalf, W. Chisholm, only seconds before the interval, nad missed halt a dozen good chances and was beginning to make elementary mistakes. Brighton had done little to suggest the side could save the match, but at the same time it needed only one fatal mistake in

the United defence to give the seasiders their opportunity. And that one was made in the sixtysecond minute. CHANCE MISSED Mulgrew, the top scorer in the national league tills season, was left on his own to pick up a I through pass from D Eadie, turned in a flash and streaked (for the United goal with only- his ■ former Nelson United team-mate. I P Dando, to beat. i Dando, who had been one of I the loneliest men on the ground | for most of the match, came out I quickly and Mulgrew was forced | to make his shot from the edge ; of the penalty area. It was a bad one, the ball screwing off his left boot and missing the goal by several yards. Had he scored, anything might have happened, even to the extent of Brighton going on to win the match that at no other time had looked a possibility. The seasiders were outclassed in midfield, terribly shaky in defence and a danger in attack only in isolated breakaways. MID-FIELD CONTROL United, in contrast, firmly controlled the mid-field through T, Randles, B. Hardman and S. Sumner and apart from occasional lapses in defence, contained all of Brighton’s forwards with little difficulty. On attack, however, United had been disappointing. Sumner and K. Doomenbal, each on two occasions, wasted glorious goalscoring chances and the team was reduced to shots from long range that should have made no impression on a goalkeeper of D. Phillips’s class. Then, with supporters of both teams anxiously watching the clock—and with different reasons —the fireworks started. Hardman, the man of the match for his craft and graft, found A. Marley, who heard Sumner’s call and switched the ball across the goal. Sumner chested It down, crashed It past Phillips

from unstoppable range and then complete da delighted circuit of the goal for the atonement of his previous failures. RANDLES SCORES F. Madrussan, who had replaced Doornenbal a short time earlier and went into the game as if he had been released from a tight spring, formed a one-two with Randles who was left the kind of scoring chance be would have dearly loved against his old club, Stoke City.

Finally, Park and Marley, who it seemed had not stopped running since the previous Wednesday, set up Hardman two minutes later and the little linkman crashed the ball Into the net from the underside of the bar. Bewildered Brighton defenders searched here, there and everywhere to find what had gone wrong, but it was simply a case, of United's superior football finally getting its full reward. J. Kroon was the only Brighton defender to keep a cool head under pressure and Mulgrew was the only forward to threaten the United goal, but neither received the support they needed to get a grip on the play. STRENGTH ALL ROUND

In contrast, United not only held mid-field domination, but also had solid defenders in L. Blyth, J. Oliver, G. Griffiths and K. France and plenty of hard work from Marley and I. Park. The Brighton coach, B. Macdonald, summed up his view oi the game afterwards: “Football won that match, but we were unlucky to go down by such a big margin. In fact, United was not flattered by its win, for it should have been well ahead long before those hectic last eight minutes.