CRUCIAL
Chesham 0 Yeltz 2
22 January 2005
With a most important victory away at Chesham, the indomitable Yeltz stayed firmly in the ridiculously close promotion battle. First half goals from Lewis and The Pope and some resolute defending has taken us up to 7th place in the table but a lot closer after most of the other results went our way. More details in my old-skool stylee match report (DJ couldn't make it!)
On Monday we play the first of three matches against teams in the relegation zone when we travel down to play Team Bath. If we are really going to challenge this season I think we need at least seven (and hopefully nine!) of these points so lets hope for a victory to cash in our game in hand.
Match Report from Poll
Yeltz: Halesowen Town: Taylor; Cooper, Preston, Pope, D. Jones, Haywood, Cowley, Forsdick, Baker, Moore, Lamey. Subs used: Danks, Steane, Haarhoff
As anyone who can remember as far back as the old fanzine, accuracy (or relevancy) in the match reports was never our strong point, but with Dave not able to make the game and myself and Franko getting excited about travelling to a game on the Tube, it's left to me to try to record what might have happened...
Pre-game discussion centered around lucky omens. After the sad demise of my lucky socks a few years ago due to overuse, my sure fire tip for success is having a Five Bean Chilli from Wetherspoons before the game (the reason both for our excellent cup run and for us losing at Yeading when I couldn't find one), whereas Frank reckons we need to get all the pictures in the quiz in The Independent for us to win. Quiz being completed, we gambled on concentrating on beer (hence not going to Ws) and once again it was proved I AM NOT THE JINX when we went out and got our best result since I was last at the game against Merthyr.
Their ground was fantastic. Average terracing, poor pitch (although not bad for this time of year) but their clubhouse bar had an excellent view of the pitch - perfect! For what ever reason we had switched to the white away shirts despite having played in blue at The Grove when they played in their Villa kits, which meant we had almost exactly the same kit as their keeper - no idea how that can be allowed.
We reverted to the team that got us off to the excellent start to the season (except with Nathan replacing Jimmy) which meant no place for the returning to fitness Andy Spencer (who??? :-)) and Ben Steane. We started off pretty well, and then deservedly took the lead through a very well worked corner. Fozzy played a short corner back to Alex to drag their defence out of the box, and he put a magic cross on to the head of Lewis, who as ever put it away brilliantly.
There wasn't much in it for the rest of the half until we got a free-kick on the edge of the box which, when The Pope takes one of his free-kicks, is almost as good as a penalty. As usual it's very hard to know exactly what happened but to be technical, he wellied it and it went through everyone and went in. Job done, two up so we could retire to the bar for a while.
Second half they had most of the play, and to be fair completely outplayed us playing some decent football at times. However we defended brilliantly and they probably only had one decent chance when their forward scooped it over from what looked like close-range. The Yeltz fans were in good voice in a strange stand that had excellent acoustics but with a very strange Giants Causeway/Woodhenge affair at the front. Like I say a fantastic ground.
So with Team Bath, Stamford, Hemel Hempstead, and Rugby coming up I really hope we can take this excellent form on with us against the lower-placed teams (and not do another Solihull). Even those amongst you who haven't been coming long must have worked out your lucky omens by now, so don't falter now - however bizarre your rituals may be.