Keyworth
United Green: 0 Forest Town Colts 3
Brave Keyworth look so young
Any thoughts of a shock result following last week’s fine
performance at Forest Town quickly proved to be fools gold
for Keyworth as they again fell to the league leaders in
tonight’s reverse fixture. The Mansfield boys are a big
team physically and combine that with a maturity that
emphasised Keyworth’s naivety and made us look very young
by comparison. Not that we were outplayed, far from it - we
made a good fight of it and had our chances been taken,
could have pushed them close, but it’s just that Forest
Town were better organised, immediately knew what to do
with the ball and were positionally more astute.
That was immediately evident as Forest Town went straight
for the jugular and with a combination of pace and power,
bombarded the Greens for the first ten minutes, taking the
lead in the process when a twenty yard bobbler found the
corner of the net with Sam unsighted. Without top scorer
Danny, otherwise engaged in a schools cup final from which
he emerged victorious (congratulations Danny!), Keyworth
were struggling to find an outlet and Town continued to
dominate. One goal up, you could sense a second coming
anytime as they flowed over us like a waterfall after a
heavy downpour, but largely due to some fine defending and
Sam’s brilliance, the Foresters were made to wait right
until stroke of half-time before giving themselves some
breathing space. The Greens’ defence, so often this season
impermeable and seemingly made of stone, was slow to come
out and stood looking back in disbelief as the linesman’s
flag correctly stayed by his side, leaving Sam in his own
isolation unit and presenting Town’s lone ranger with an
opportunity he wasn’t going to miss.
Coming at such a crucial time the goal could have
devastated the Greens but entering the second half, it was
clear it hadn’t as Keyworth came out re-vitalised and put
Town under pressure for a change. It was now a much more
even contest as Keyworth, growing in self-belief, started
to fancy their chances of an upset. Sadly, those hopes were
scuppered midway through the half when a fine
counter-attack by the visitors was coolly finished to make
it 3-0. Bizarrely, this spurred Keyworth into action and
suddenly the leaders knew they were in a game. It looked
like we’d get our reward when the hard-working Josh
pressured the keeper into a mistake, and nudged the ball
goalwards from the edge of the box. With the ball trickling
towards the unattended net, a Town defender appeared from
nowhere to chase back and hack the ball off the line - it
was a very close call! Why is there never a Russian
linesman around when you need one?
Minutes later, fine passing through the midfield put Tommo
in. His shot under the keeper looked destined for the net,
only to catch the goalie’s trailing leg and rebound to
Douglas some eight yards out. Surely this is the one I
thought, but just as I was dialling Ladbrokes to put my
mortgage on Mr Composure scoring, Doug glimpsed a defender
moving in. Changing his mind swiftly, Doug chose placement
over power. Opting for a curler into the far corner, but
forgetting to allow for magnetic deviation, he set the
compass marginally out and watched in anguish as the ball
flew a whisker wide despite Ben’s brave acrobatic efforts
to force it home. With it went Keyworth’s hopes and Forest
Town held on to complete their Keyworth
double.
Listening to my wife on my return home - always a smart
move as she bangs the drums in our house - I had to agree
that despite the result, we could take many positives from
this game. We weren’t overwhelmed; we battled hard and
never gave up - not least Jacob who was superb - and we
played some good football at times, creating at least two
excellent chances, which if taken would have changed the
complexion of the game completely.
All in all, against a strong Forest Town outfit, we did ok
and played our part in another decent game to watch. Good
luck to Town in their quest for the title.
As for us, fifth place still beckons - we’ll be doing all
we can to grab it!
