In a Boxing Day special, ARFC edged out Techwood FC 1-0 in a match that was devoid of much scoring opportunities for both teams. The match was played at the magnificent artificial pitch at Springfield SS and despite it being the festive season, ARFC was still being supported by Anna, Cerine, Tracie and Irene, WAGS of Elvis, Jinzhong, Guoxiong and Alvin respectively.
As Elvis, Jinzhong and Guoxiong were late, ARFC started the match with only 8 warriors. Once they came in, together with Ron, ARFC’s starting 11 is as follows:
ARFC started with this line-up:
Keeper: Dependable Jinzhong
Right-back: Hard-running Guoxiong
Sweeper: Astute-reading Elvis
Stopper: Towering Toh
Left-back: Unpredictable Blackburn
Right-mid: Talisman Derrick
Centre-mid: Influential Sebastian
Centre-mid: Combative Ron
Left-mid: Hardman Tjioe
Striker: Powerful Alvin
Striker: Speedy Hee
Dynamic Soon volunteered to be the only sub.
In a 1st half of rare chances, Derrick was put through by Sebastian but his 1st touch let the team down and the ball was lost. Besides this, the only highlight was the poor performance of the referee.
In the 2nd half, the pattern did not change but the tackles were now coming in hard and fast. Thankfully, ARFC was able to rely on the tenacity of Toh, Ron, Tjioe, Derrick and Soon to keep the opponents at bay.
ARFC could have opened the scoring in the 67th min. From a free-kick on the right, everybody including their keeper was anticipating a high ball into the penalty area which was crowded with both sets of players. Instead, Sebastian curled the ball directly over the ball to the keeper’s left but the ball hit the left-hand post and rebounded off the back of the despairing keeper for a corner. Unlucky!!
ARFC finally scored in the 77th min after some very good work by Alvin at the left touch-line. Alvin wriggled his way through but was cruelly hacked down by the defender who earned a caution for the tackle. Alvin dusted himself off the ground and floated in a free-kick right into the heart of the 6-yard box. Their keeper came out, clutched thin air, and off some pressure by Ron, Toh and Tjioe, their defender inexplicably deflected the ball into the net for an own goal. Tjioe tried to claim the goal but camera replays clearly showed an own goal. This would be the 19th own goal conceded by opponents in ARFC matches.
ARFC then hung on for a narrow but well-deserved victory. This is ARFC’s 31st win out of 46 matches in 2009.
Special credit must be given to both Alvin and Hee today as both had to endure some very hard tackles from their tough and no-nonsense central defenders. Both emerged unscath to cause endless problems to the opponents.
Mention must also be given to Derrick, Tjioe and Ron for putting up a tough fight despite some very heavy tackles by the opponents.
Also, it’s always nice to keep a clean sheet which we have not done so since 29 Nov 09 when we whacked Nitroz FC 14-0 at Bowen SS.
Man-of-the-Match is given to Alvin though Soon and Ron came very close.
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