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| FIXTURE HISTORY |
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| Season 85 | L | 1 - 3 | Tournament (Group Phase) | | Season 84 | L | 1 - 6 | Tournament (Group Phase) | | Season 83 | D | 2 - 2 | Tournament (Group Phase) |
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Green The New Black
Yellow Swings It
Grilled Birds would finally see off German IV.15 club Stormarn Blackbirds at the fourth asking, after being continually drawn against them in the group stage of The Golden Trophy. Assuming a fair draw, this involved some quite remarkable odds of about one in five hundred, which the match commentators could not resist harping on in the lead-up. The Blackburns had seen some turnover in the three seasons since the last clash, if with key men Bertil Lerche and Joerg Gsödl remaining a constant.
The Birds would be relatively unchanged, but with their midfield three years more mature, it was maybe inevitable that the Blackbirds would run into more trouble than they ever had against their Singaporean counterparts.
Chan Ze Han for one might be over the hill, but given the titanic heights that he had reached, this was still considerably tall; Gsödl might have batted aside
Chad Thach's scrambled effort in the eleventh minute, but there would be no denying Chan as he dropped a free-kick over a five-man wall a bit later, just like that.
Near-effortless class was not the exclusive domain of Grilled's Number Eleven, granted, and Blackbirds' longtime Danish star winger Bertil Lerche soon proved that he still had it, despite being 34 years of age. Finding himself on the left wing after a slow-developing attack that filtered over from the right, Lerche took on
Aw Keng Chuan directly, and his frighteningly-good control at speed would see him breeze past the Birds defender, before thundering the equalizer beyond
Dimitris Germanakos.
Grilled were still pulling the strings here, despite such occasional bursts of vigour from their opponents, and they were good value for a second goal, as
Gandhik Chitre was first onto a
Brian Reddy low cross in the 20th minute.
Hwang Teck Fu was next up as the Birds continued their assault without respite, but when Thach sent it at an awkward height to him next, it was all he could do to get contact with a very brave diving header that had him a whisker from getting brained by Maximilian Josef Schadrack's boot. It was on target, but Gsödl was there.
Joe Reece high-fived
Chan Ze Han as he trotted on for the second half, but as so often before, the Welshman didn't exactly promote himself with his actions thereafter. His earnestness was matched only by his lack of composure whenever presented with the ball, and it was hard to watch what had become of a formerly supremely-confident striker. Blackbirds kept a tight three at the back, and when they came forward in the 70th minute, Helmut Großkreutz stepped up to bend it past Germanakos from the head of the penalty area.
A draw was not about to be much good for the Blackbirds with Abbeydale Hammer absolutely dismantling Fluffy Bunny Feets in the other fixture, however, and the Germans needed goals - many more of them, in fact. With time literally running out on them, Grilled had the leeway to play keep-away, and this had Bruno Gropius booked for confronting
Ha Qicai after the Grilled skipper dallied on putting the ball back into play. The free-kick was duly played down the channel to Reece, who managed to penetrate inside from the right, but Joerg Gsödl had the angle covered as usual.
In the end, it was
Hwang Teck Fu who provided that required X-factor for Grilled three minutes on, as he swept down the right side in tandem with
Brian Reddy. Bolesław Śnitko could not keep an eye on both at the same time, and Reece did contribute by drawing Schadrack aside, allowing Hwang to find the bottom corner unimpeded.
