Men’s 2 Win 4-2 against Cirencester.

Inciteful commentary by Dan Crossman

A grey, cold and miserable Saturday morning was the backdrop as Marlborough 2s took on Cirencester at home. The early start was welcomed by those of us with young children to escape while others clearly struggled with the prospect of setting the alarm on a Saturday morning.

Although below us in the league, Cirencester had been on a fine run of form and a good game was in prospect. It didn’t disappoint. The first half began at a high tempo with the visitors pressing high and cramping Marlborough for room. In truth, we found this hard to cope with and several balls were cleared out of our defence with more than a hint of panic about them. Just as the home side were beginning to settle into some better patterns of play, Cirencester launched a counter attack that resulted in their left winger attempting a reverse stick strike from the far left of the ‘D’. Bizarrely, the miscued shot somehow ballooned up high into the air, destined to land somewhere around the penalty spot. Any defensive worries were quickly allayed as Rob Hues called ‘mine’. Rob then proceeded to take the ball out of the murky skies and volley it with some power. Sadly, he volleyed it directly into our own net. 0-1.

Marlborough responded well with overseas signing, Mark Ramage, firing several cutting passes into the opposition ‘D’. One of these resulted in a short corner that Radders duly despatched in the time honoured tradition. 1-1. The home side were now winning more and more ‘shorts’ with Playfair causing the opposition real problems with his signature mazy dribbles. Another short saw Ramage thunder the ball into the far post following Keith’s slip right and Marlborough went into half-time 2-1 up.

The general consensus at half-time was to ‘get stuck in’. The Cirencester midfield had probably won the first half and we needed to up our game…

The second half started with Playfair winning a short corner straight from the push back. This set the tone for the half: Marlborough pressed far more aggressively and starting winning short after short. Radders claimed another straight strike to make it 3-1 and the home side took control of the game. Despite our dominance, Cirencester scored a breakaway goal from one of our short corners to make it 3-2 and this threatened to halt the momentum Marlborough had built. However the message at half-time had really sunk in and the home team upped the intensity levels even more. A few of the ‘senior pros’ really bossed the midfield… one or two of the visiting players may well need a lie down with a couple of Alka-Seltzer after receiving much well-intentioned ‘advice’ from Ramage, Crossman and associates. Typically, Radders took this too far by making puppet gestures at the opposition and was quite rightly sent off by Alex. Good decision umpire- let Marcel Marceau cool off in the sin bin for a bit.

The best moment of the game came 5 minutes from the end as Nick Jepson picked up the ball on the top of the D... I think I might have even passed it to him. Jepson pirouetted like Darcey Bussell in her prime and unleashed an absolute piledriver into the top corner. The crowd, all five men and a dog, collectively gasped and spontaneous applause erupted throughout the town. What a goal! What a time to be alive!

This topped a cracking performance by Nick Jephson and he just nicks Man of the Match away from Lewis Davies who is proving a good bit of business in the January transfer window from 3s to 2s. Next week we move onto Bristol UWE…