|
| FIXTURE HISTORY |
|
| Season 83 | W | 5 - 3 | Tournament (Group Phase) |
| |
|
|
The Hammer Falls
Tate Tot
The Golden Trophy would return for its seventeenth edition after a long lull, and Grilled Birds would answer the call - to be drawn against Stormarn Blackbirds in Group A yet again. Their first challengers would be Yorkshire VI.60 champions Abbeydale Hammer at least, and in them Grilled would find a kindred spirit in their overweening commitment to attack over defence.
24 year-old local idol Gabriel Tate, capped 26 times for the English youth team, exemplified this attitude more than most, with strikemates Guy Murnane and Lewis MacColl making for much muscle as backup. Swede Jonas Mårtensson would be their main supplier from midfield, with some sparks provided by Brunei livewire Ma Daqiang. All in, this was a relatively young and fresh squad, as Italian left winger Alessandro Pandolfo demonstrated with his fearless taking on of
Brian Reddy in the third minute, to score on the prompt return pass by Murnane.
Dimitris Germanakos was awfully let down by his defenders then, and he wasn't shy to make it known to them. Grilled Birds would not let conceding early affect them for long, fortunately, and they wasted no time in working into their usual passing patterns. That had them equalise in the 15th minute through
Mohd Marzuki Khairul via a smooth six-pass combination, and they would then go ahead five minutes on, as Reddy flashed a snap cross over to the far post, where
Lim An Keng got it across goalie John Lewis, and in off the other upright.
The match was very far from being decided with the Hammers successfully getting physical in Grilled's penalty area, and Swiss centreback Kevin Greminger would have several corners in which to test the Birds out. One fine specimen had Dex Powell climb over
Hwang Teck Fu only to power his header inches wide, but Gabriel Tate made up for it several minutes on, as he took
Ha Qicai on and made him look silly with a dainty double stepover, before rolling it past a rooted Germanakos.
Chan Ze Han had not managed to keep up with the pace for the most part, despite his undoubted footballing intelligence, and
Joe Reece immediately made an impact upon coming on for the second half. Despite being far from his best, Reece knew what he had to do when Powell charged him two minutes after the restart, and his going down upon brief contact won a penalty for Grilled.
Aw Keng Chuan sized Lewis up for longer than absolutely needed, and it paid off as he sent the goalkeeper the other way with his leisurely run-up.
Grilled didn't look safe even at 3-2 as the Hammers pounded about in their box, and after
Chia Kwang Tse risked a penalty giveaway of his own with a late trip on Murnane,
Chad Thach got himself booked for standing over the free-kick trying to argue Chia's case. Tate's strike went nowhere, luckily, and it was the Birds who upped their haul to five goals, with successive strikes from wide plays by Lim and Thach.
This was not taken well by the English team, who cranked up the intensity in response; Alessandro Pandolfo would finally be booked 70 minutes in after several borderline incidents against
Brian Reddy, as he dived in hard from the winger's side. That had
Joe Reece lunge in as retaliation, and only immediately intervention by the match officials kept the situation from getting out of hand.
Yellow cards were shown to both Pandolfo and Reece, along with a long talking-to, after the game came back under control, with a free-kick soon awarded at the Hammers' end as Grilled sent it their way fast.
Aw Keng Chuan booted it about a foot over with Thach screaming for it in space, but he could afford it with Grilled still three goals ahead.
