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Match Report

Date:
24/Feb/02

Opponent:
Rangers FC

Score:
Coveside 1
Rangers 2

Location:
Mahon

Reporter:
Chapman

Pictures:
No

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On a frozen golden pond called Mahon, Coveside trotted out their old bones to play their second-last game of the season on jagged gravel against Rangers on Sunday morning.

The game being far less important than the upcoming Canada-U.S. Olympic hockey final, it still held some importance to CUFC manager Bernie Ward, who got to the field early and buried an empty Molson Canadian can under the centre spot for good luck.

The early hour and the cold weather had the Coveside lads a bit sleepy. After their usual warmup, consisting of standing in a circle and pulling their wires, the lads started off a bit slow.
Employing the old "punt and run" tactic we were unlucky Craig Larson didn't single handedly run more than the rest of the team combined to get to one of the 17 balls we shot long into the corners for him.

The opposition was also not exactly running Coveside ragged either. A former Division One powerhouse, age and commitment had robbed the team of several key players from the year before and as the team drops down to Division Two, they make no apologies about the era they come from. This is all clearly evidenced the fact their goalie wears legwarmers (all together now, "he's a maaaaniac, maaaniac on the floor, and he's dancin' like he's never danced
before ...") and their strikers play with the collars up on their jerseys.

Having said that the Crockett-Tubbs combination up front caused Coveside no end of trouble as they bounced the ball around the Coveside box like the lone McDonald's french fry below the drivers seat in Bernie's pickup. Russ Hennessey was back in the lineup and did well getting his head on almost every ball around. Karim Ismail hit a tremendous corner to the far post finding a charging Rusty who got a solid piece of noggin on the ball but saw it sail over the bar.

Al Roberts was sweeping up nicely in the back, and some tenacious defending by Randy Ash kept the score at nils going into the half. Buoyed by the late arrivals of Harp Dhaliwal and Mark Docherty, as well as the return to the team of "The Geezer" Andy Dudley, CUFC had started to
carry the play headed into the half and despite a legion of players begging for subs, the boys started the second half well.
 

On the downside, Larson had to head off back to work for the second half so the team, which was already without Bryn, Sunny and a host of others, was getting thinner than the thread in the gusset of Brad's shorts. Sean Bartlett's work down the wing forced more loose balls than Russ and Mark's trip to Vegas and kept the ball in the Rangers end. Jason Fisher and Karim Ismail used their speed out wide to get in some good chances, and Brad Chapman's hustle caught Rangers by surprise and he was unlucky on several occasions not to get a well deserved breakaway.

Not long into the half, some solid work from Harpie down the right side saw him play a brilliant ball back up to his cousin, Randy Johal who had it teed up from about 25 yards out, but just missed the sweet spot and send the ball hurtling wide. About halfway through the second half, against the run of play, Rangers got a break off a bounced cross that fell to a seemingly-offside Sonny Crockett. The keeper hesitated (surprise, surprise) was caught in no man's land and
the pride of South Beach knocked it into the net for a 1-0 lead.
 
As is usual CUFC style, a goal against means a prolonged slumber, and it was five minutes again until Coveside were punished a second time. A long looping punt from the corner was caught up in the sun, bounced around between two CUFC defenders then collected by Crockett and poked into the net like the last sausage roll into Bernie's mouth on a Saturday night.

2-0 and Coveside's thoughts turned to getting off the field and in front of the tube for the gold medal clash. Some good defending from Ed Duynstee kept the score at 2-0, which enabled
Coveside to scramble one back. Some solid work down the left side from Jason won a corner. Karim hit a beauty which came off a defender and then was powerfully and skillfully headed down into the side of the net by Jason to make it 2-1.

Coveside came close with pressure around the box in the last five minutes, but never got another clear cut chance, accepting defeat and a sum total of one point off the seven games with Division One teams.

One more game, Tuesday against Lupo, and CUFC officially close the book on another successful season. On a side note, apparently a man with a large mullet and mustache was seen at Mahon later in the day with a metal detector digging up the empty can from under the centre spot.

 

 

 

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