Nomads Twos draw against Cam South

From the pen of Morty:

Local foes Cambridge South 3s visited fortress Coldhams on Saturday. Lurking in the lower half of the table and with Nomads 2s flying high in 4th – it was surely to be another win for the Blue and Whites against the Purples.

When, in the second minute, Gianluca craftily guided the ball into the corner of the net from space at the top of the D, all seemed in order for a routine win. It soon became apparent, however, that South had other ideas.

In truth we never did quite manage to completely shut down their right-sided attack, despite valiant defending from our new look back four. Nomads Twos this season have persisted in varying their defensive personnel from game to game and this week was no different. An interesting tactic – though to be fair on our leader, and chief selector, not one of his wanting, more so, one foisted upon him from higher powers.

The much-vaunted Woody/Felix duo from last week headed in different directions for different reasons, giving Dan and Jez opportunities to step into the breech. Dan, with his dodgy foot, succumbed after a valiant period of only minor, and occasional, northern expletives, and Jez set about enthusiastically hacking any South stick that entered his vicinity. To be fair to him, he wasn’t alone, with those other protagonists of old-school tackling (Spence and Rick that’s you), chipping in with some crunchers of their own. I swear Doc W and Pete went all misty-eyed for a while, witnessing such fine endeavour. Then remembered they were umpiring and instead gave us a rightful scolding.

Unfortunately South then pierced Nomads armour by unfairly exploiting the large gaps that we offered them in and around the D, and neatly slotted the first of their 3 remarkably similar goals, from a right-sided passing move.

That wasn’t in the plan, and the game was turning into a real contest, with South’s midfielders starting to assert some pressure.
With 5 minutes of the first half remaining Nomads finally managed to unleash the legendary, but sporadic, Huchu bash. Matthew, despite facing in the wrong direction, latched on to a loose ball in the D and crunched it sweetly, and surprisingly, in the right direction, past the startled South keeper, to put us back into the lead.

Determined to see it out till half-time, Nomads somehow then fell to the same South trick of exploiting the space we offered them around the D. An unfortunate hint of obstruction in the final throes of the build-up had Spence chuntering his way into the half-time huddle. But 2-2 it was. Game on.

The second half started with a period of sustained Nomad possession. Which was followed by a familiar looking South move resulting in a familiar looking goal with their first advance of the half, when we cunningly left their player completely unmarked in front of goal. Doh!
Behind for the first time, Nomads came back hard. By now Archie had been thrown into the fray at an unfamiliar right back, and we were down to our last fit 11, with the ever optimistic President succumbing to his injury before the game had even begun.

It turned out that Archie can run a bit and we gratefully gave him some ball to take with him on his travels. Sugi, Arthur (long-stick-Meadows), and Matthew up front were tirelessly plugging away for openings, which eventually came our way. Not quite sure exactly what happened (in my defence it was a long way away at the time), but someone (El Captaine) was kneeling down and the ball ended up in the goal. Matthew applying the final touch. Fortunately the anguished shouts of South protest were rightly ignored by our excellent umpires (check the rules on ‘playing the ball from the ground’ – they don’t exist) and the goal stood.

We pushed for a winner, and a few chances came and went. There was still enough time for a small bit of nonsense in the middle and the first card of the day for a South midfielder after reacting to being crunched by a weary, old Nomad (sorry), but a draw was probably about right for a keenly contested match against a spirited South team, and so it thus ended.

Apparently Rick (really) and Matthew received MoM nominations from the award panel – Rick for ‘Sterling work in the middle of the pitch’, Matthew on the basis of his sweetly crunched finish for the 1st goal. Don’t think we can award DoD to a South player (for the wild swing at the end) so my vote goes to Spence for some Spencesque chuntering and a couple of ‘big-foot’ interventions!

A somewhat disappointing result on paper – but it was a lively and enjoyable contest on the whole, and we were all done, dusted, and in the warm safety of the pub, enjoying our pints, when the monsoon hit an hour later!