Old Bancroftians 1 OHAFC III 1

In very windy conditions, football coaches up and down the country tell players of all levels and abilities to keep the ball on the floor. That is, unless you are playing on a pitch with speed bumps, patches of shingle and an allergy to grass.

Such were the conditions on a grey day in Essex. The squad was reduced from 13 to 11 by carnage on the North Circular which saw Chopra and Tass von Hirch stuck in gridlock traffic until the game had all but finished, never making it to the ground.

Harrow stuck to their task very well in the first half, playing into the howling wind and putting pressure on the Brancroft midfield to nullify any attacking threat. Yunus Sert and Fred Fife were solid at the back throughout with the help of Nick ‘The Terrier’ Kapoor playing in front of them.

The first clear cut chance of the game fell to Ollie Feather who reacted first to a dangerous ball into the box, prodding it goalwards and producing a good save from the rather over-zealous Bancroft ‘keeper who was hiding a very expensive set of veneers behind a heavy duty mouth guard.

Chances were few and far between but a free kick to Bancroft in the dying minutes of the half produced a goal that incensed the visitors. The ball was delivered into a dangerous area, where it was flicked on by a striker who had cleared out Turner in the Harrow goal with a suspect challenge that did him more harm than the Harrow flapper. The ball then fell to a man stationed between the ‘keeper and the goal who finished from inside two yards.

There have been many iterations of the offside rule in recent years but even the most liberal of these would struggle to legalise this piece of opportunistic goal hanging. However, without the luxury of television officials due to the stubborn resistance of Sepp Blatter, the men in blue dragged themselves off for a half time pep talk.

The second half saw Harrow improve, with Messrs Gilbert and Smith making life difficult for the Bancroft defence. Harry Woolley and Ned Callander also provided good width as chances began to appear, with the final ball too often letting the side down. As the wind got stronger, it became harder and harder to spread the ball about, leading to some direct end-to-end football from both sides.

Beautiful it was not but certainly the direct approach proved to be effective. Faber kindly offered to do the final 15 minutes in goal, unleashing the skipper into midfield, still reeling from the night before. Kapoor won the ball in midfield and found Turner in space who fed a tantalising ball inside the full back, finding the well-timed run of Gilbert who kept his cool to slot home into the corner. It was no less than the visiting side deserved and came just as the game began to get a bit ‘tasty’.

Kapoor was making no friends and pushed a rather scrawny member of the opposition to react very aggressively to a fairly innocuous challenge, only to find Frank ‘The Tank’ Fife stopping him dead in his tracks to diffuse the situation. After a frantic finish with Harrow desperately pouring forward in search of a winner, the game finished all square which was perhaps a fair result given the unsympathetic conditions.

With Woolley having helped himself to three portions of some rather stodgy carbonara, the troops headed to the cars to take on the London traffic once more. As Faber turned the key to his motor, however, there was a spluttering noise but little else. After many attempts to start the car, some jump leads were found. Both the battery and fuel light were flashing and after Turner’s best attempts to electrocute himself, it was established that the battery was not the source of the problem. Some petrol was found form a local station but that also failed to ignite any passion in the VW Polo’s engine. Even the running start was attempted but to no avail.

Four hours, a Dominos and a visit from the AA later, Faber, Smith and Kapo were able to make their way home from a car park in Bancroft. If Carlsberg made Saturday afternoons…