Vital matches for two soccer teams

Press, 5 October 1984, Page 10

Vital matches for two soccer teams

By

DAVID LEGGAT

The 1984 Christchurch soccer season finally closes this week-end, having started midway through February, with the city’s top two clubs, Christchurch Brother United and Rangers, both playing matches of considerable importance. For United, there is the chance to claim second place, and $7OOO prize money, if it can win either of its two outstanding Rothmans League ' matches, against the league champions, Gisborne City at English Park tonight, and against National Mutual Miramar on Sunday. The major match for Rangers is their home game against Stop Out in the national league play-off series at Rangers Park tomorrow.

For soccer in Canterbury, the Rangers match is of greater significance. It is three years since Christchurch had two representatives in the national league. Then it was Rangers, which ended a two-year term in the competition by finishing bottom, by an embarrassing margin.

Now Rangers are regrouping to make another bid for a place in the country’s premier competition. The events of the last two seasons show that they remain the city’s best bet as a second representative. The club’s facilities are second to none in the city. Where it has struggled is on

the field. At the end of last season, Rangers had an excellent chance of returning to the national league. In the playoff series, they drew with Stop Out in Lower Hutt and a win at home against University Cowan would have put them firmly on course for the place vacated by Dunedin Technical,

However, they went down, 3-1, to a physically tougher University team, which took advantage of indecisive defensive work to end Rangers’ hopes for another year. There are signs that this season’s team is a more worthy challenger for ultimate success. The defence is still prone to moments of casualness, but their goalkeeper, Peter Hawker, is a year more experienced, and provided their concentration does not waver, they will defend with determination.

Rangers have a useful attack. John Boatwood, Mel Ritchie and Mike Poole have proved good value up

front, while lan Cowan, Grant Hughes and Geoff Blackburn are hard working midfielders who all know what is required to regain a place in the top grade.

There is a chance that the play-offs could turn into a straight home-and-away series with Stop Out, a convincing winner of the central league. The bottom national league team, either University Cowan, or McKee Nelson United, might opt out of the series. If that does happen, it makes Rangers’ chances all the brighter, provided they can get a good result tomorrow.

United’s task if different. It will be out to end a season of good and bad moments on a high note by proving itself the second best team in the country. At one stage, the game against Gisborne was shaping up as the match of the season, with both teams working themselves into the position of being the two contenders for the crown. But while Gisborne rattled off wins with machine-like precision, United stumbled just when it had to keep winning. Two successive losses were enough to put. Gisborne too far ahead. Then the goal supply dried up,... leaving United in danger of missing the prize money altogether. Happily, that drought ended last Sunday, and, with the other contenders knocking each other about, United requires three points from the two games to be sure of second place. It will want to do it in style, with two wins. Whether it can recapture its form of the first half of the season for a final fling, is another story.