Between the sticks and stones
GPR 0 Newton City 3
Well, it wasn’t to be. Having lost our previous two opening games, a new-look Salad side were unable to flip the script against a well drilled Newton City. Despite some good football from the home team, the visitors used their experience and mettle to carry the victory this weekend.
Life at GPR has felt strangely straight-forward in recent months. We’d had a good preseason, securing sponsorship and numbers for the foreseeable future as well as playing some of the best stuff ever seen in the black and blue. With spirits raised, we were all praying - and to some degree, anticipating - a solid start. A clean slate. A new beginning with none of the problems of the past. A new dawn for the club.
Then goalkeeper Andy broke two of his fingers after five minutes. If you aren’t accustomed to our injury history, they are a constant menace at the club. With no substitute keeper available, it was hard to imagine a worse start to the new campaign. But when you have no backup plan, you can only plow forward. In came Bart, our resident full back and publican, to don the no. 1.
This chaotic turn of events sparked an understandable panic amongst the lads for a short period of time, and Newton were lively to it. The warning signs came with a range of testing deliveries, and some mobile forward play demonstrated the threat to come. At around the 20 minute mark, the opposition striker got through, rounded the goalie, and slotted home to open the scoring.
A quick rally and a formation change later, though, it was the home side who looked more likely to score. Rory’s breaks down the channels combined well with Sina and Joel’s dynamic wing play, setting up two quick chances that came close to being converted. We got our foot on the ball, and league debutants Steeve and Josh were freely moving things around. Defensively we had tightened up as well, with Bart having little to do in the second half of the first 45.
Alas, we went into the break a goal down, confident of coming back into the game. We got ourselves psyched up and went back out there. Again, however, this was met with Newton’s experience. They are a team with plenty of street smarts and hinted towards the step up in quality we will be facing this year.
The striker came close to doubling his lead when he chipped Bart, only for the ball to bounce precariously over the bar as well. Shortly after, the makeshift goalie came out again and this time got to the ball first, although this time he was adjudged to have been outside the box when he did it.
In his defence, the faint pitch lines did not help this, but he recovered splendidly, producing a string of saves that included a fantastic fingertipped effort from a free kick. Throwing caution to the wind, we decided to chance it and risk a goal, knowing it’s better to try to win the game at the expense of conceding more.
Sometimes this works very well. We should know, having been on the receiving end of it a few times ourselves. Notorious chaos-maker Dan was thrown up top and immediately used his height and power to win a few headers, all of which went agonisingly past the post. Sina chimed in with a couple of long range efforts, but we couldn’t make the impact we’d been hinting at all second half.
And Newton punished us for it. Two late goals sealed the deal for them, and killed the game. It was a frustrating affair but one littered with promise and constant running to the end. Football is an unforgiving mistress, but we’ll come back stronger and with lessons learnt. Onwards and upwards - nothing beats watching the Salads.
MOTM 💫 = Bart is getting it for the sheer bravery to put his hand up when we were in a very tricky spot. Sunday’s performance was testament to his commitment to the team.
DOTD 👀 = Doctor’s orders.
