Barely Athletic 4 - 1 Cardiff Accies
Goal: Tom
Defence: Batts, Danny, Ian G
Midfield: Adam, Richie, Jacko, Paul T, Paul L
Attack: Jim S, Chris
Subs: Andy, Colin, Sam
On the day when Sir Alex Ferguson retired his mind-bending wristwatch, most of the media focus was at Old Trafford. But at Keynsham a great drama was being played out, as Barely Athletic won their third game in a row in style, after a season of staggering from one defeat to another.
What this means seems to be open to interpretation, however, as nobody in the press box could work out from the various permutations of plausible outcomes whether it made Barely definitively, categorically safe. There hasn't been this much confusion over whether it was The Great Escape or not since Mr Forgetful opened a cinema and invited Blur to a premiere directed by Steve McQueen (the other one). But if this wonderful silver lining has a dark cloud nestled within, for now at least Barely can reflect that they have given themselves more than a fighting chance. Not so long ago the writing was on the wall; now it's being scrubbed off by white-collar criminals repaying the community.
As regular readers know, Barely don't believe in doing things the easy way, so despite a line-up tailored to negate the burly physique of the Accies, they began slightly on the back foot, looking flummoxed by the purposeful opening by the visitors. But before long they worked their way into the game, and started engineering chances in the opposition box.
But perhaps due to the bobbly pitch there was a marked reluctance to let rip, with both Richie and Jim looking oddly goal-shy. Chris meanwhile was turning the defence inside out on regular occasions but collectively Barely couldn't seem to find the killer ball. And then an Accies attack was cleared only as far as the visiting left-winger, who promptly let fly a deft chip from 25 yards into the Barely net. One-nil down and Barely had it all to do. Initially it was Accies back on top, but like a Romero zombie Barely simply don't know when they're dead, and they worked themselves into a leading position before the break after Jim set up Adam for the equaliser before giving Barely the lead himself.
At half-time Danny rang the changes, bringing on all three subs with Chris, Adam and Danny himself making way. However Colin's niggly injury came back to haunt him after only a few minutes and Danny was back on in defence again. The half was initially much like the first as Barely threatened the box with regularity but not necessarily the goal. A stroke of luck gave them the two-goal cushion, however, when Sam's intended cross flew over the keeper and into the corner of the net.
But if Barely thought that was that, they had another think coming. Accies didn't drive all the way from Cardiff to play for an hour, and they fought hard to get back in the game, hitting both post and crossbar and drawing a smart point-blank stop from Tom and a goal-line clearing header from Andy, who was having more than a decent half down the Barely left.
Time was ticking away though, and Barely were holding firm at 3-1.
But there was still the final act to come - if this game was written by Shakespeare, it was his Hamlet rather than his Timon of Athens ( - one of the shit ones.) First Sam fouled an Accies midfielder, who took exception to the ref playing the advantage. Paul Loftus took him to task about it and the pair began an ongoing verbal battle that ran for the rest of the game, providing an intriguing and fiery subplot to an otherwise even-tempered match. Then Ian - looking for all the world like he just happened to be running across the pitch after an escaped dog - took out an Accies attacker as he surged through on goal. The ref played the letter of law and for the first time in his footballing career Goodenough had to walk.
He did it for the team, guys!
Accies were now on top as Barely, with little time to reorganise, creaked at the back. They pressured and pressured and Barely were grateful for serial interventions from the rearguard and the now standard safe handling of Tom.
In light of the chances created though, Barely did have the rub of the green. In fact you could see your face in the green when a long punt from Tom was hit first-time by an Accies defender past his own keeper. 4-1 to Barely now and surely game over?
To their credit Accies did not give up, but by now they had too much of a task, and as the ref brought the whistle to his lips, the home team accelerated - we think - into next season's fixture list with a game to spare.
Man of the Match went to Paul Loftus; presumably for his ball-winning gusto rather than his wind-up skills, and Richie and Adam ran in a close second. But as with the last two games the whole team deserved a medal for their collective effort and team ethos. Danny particularly has had to stare fate in the face, marshall his troops and force it to back down and bother someone else.
Well done gentlemen!
