Focus 0 - 6 Grilled Birds
Oxford In Sixes
Reed Redemption
The Grilled Birds coach bewildered the local soccer fraternity by putting Reed next to
Chen Chiew-Yen in spite of the Chicago native's indifferent debut against Manchester Town F.C. Reed for his part spent just twenty minutes to repay his coach's faith, scoring his first ever goal in the green of Grilled Birds with a typical striker's goal from six metres out after
Aznan Noor Yadah had done much of the hard work. This goal followed
Ma Dai-Lin's in the fifth minute, the perfect finish to a succession of ball tricks. With their regular midfielder Ibrahim bin Hamzah leaving through injury, Oxford were unwilling to extend themselves and seldom played into the Grilled half of the pitch.
The interval brought little respite to Oxford as a revitalised
Tom Pence made the first part of the second half his own with two well-taken goals born of experience. He started by reading a pass in defence and took it in his stride right into the penalty area, where he beat Oxford custodian Jin-Tian from a tight angle. While this act was almost undone by Aznan's ill-fated attempt to dribble out of trouble in the six-year box during the first Oxford attack of the half, Pence widened the gap further by stepping into Hobson's shoes for the day after Reed yielded a free-kick opportunity to him. The effort was not up to Pence's usual standards, but even a lesser one would have passed Jin-Tian handily as he couldn't make up his mind whether or not to backpedal to meet the ball. Reed was rewarded for his selflessness after five minutes when Pence returned the favour by laying the ball into his path. This time, Reed showed off his predatory instincts by stopping the ball early, causing defender Gupta to be carried forward by his own momentum. Having a clear path to goal, Reed then unhurriedly closed in on a wavering Jin-Tian and neatly lofted the ball over him. Machado got hauled before the referee for spitting quite pointedly at an opposing player, and Noor Yadah pounded the ground in despair after mishitting the ball badly when facing only Jin-Tian. The travelling faithful were compensated for this loss by
Ding Sun-Nee's goal of the game, an artistic flash kick with both feet high above the ground which sent the ball spinning unstoppably into the top left corner. This sent the stadium on its feet, and even some of the few remaining Oxford fans applauded the audacity of the attempt. Mindful that not much could top that for a climax to the match, Grilled coasted for the remaining ten minutes to collect a comfortable three points.
