Imperial 4th ‘s Put Six Past Greenwich

On the morning of the 16th October 2013, The Force (a.k.a The 4s) readied themselves for D-Day, landing on the shores of the Thames for the opening match of the season: Greenwich away. After a 12:00 meet at the “Sir Alex Ferguson” building, we bundled in for the short minibus journey 16 miles across London for our first local derby. 2 bustlingly bumpy hours later (at a startling average speed of 8mph) we arrived. Traffic-wearied, we stumbled into the changing rooms: the horns and beeps and scorns and squeaks of the grizzly London traffic still hazing our minds, still disgruntled at the irony of a fire brigade holding us up by marching on strike on such a glum, wet day. After scandalously being made to pay for parking (SCAFFS), we frantically scattered onto the pitch without a warm up, and almost without warning, the referee whistled for kick off. It’s safe to say at this point, there were no smiles. There was great irony then, as it turned out that not only could we have run — or at least cycled ­— to Greenwich as our warm up (instead of doing the long minibus journey which made us miss the warm up), but in the end, the actual match itself proved to be a better warm up than we could have hoped for! (All offence to Greenwich completely intended). With the match in progress, some unoiled rusty cobwebs were evident as the team found its collective touch. Then, the midfield trio of Schön, Rowett and Iacoponi (read as Busquets, Xavi, and Fábregas) began to settle and dictate as simple passing opened up tunnels of space for the effective wingers Bruno Howard and Smiles Chrisanta to fly into, generating hefty shots on target and making the Greenwich defence look appropriately green in their defending. Some tension built as the crucial breakthrough hadn’t yet come, whilst a slick wet surface caused some near-blunders as our defence was caught cold. Crucially, newly-recruited keeper Sam O’Neil (with our first choice Sanjiv seized by the 3s…) stepped up with some key sweeper-keeper plays, giving us the chance to finally capitalise on our dominance at the other end, with Smiles converting a swish team move with a swish finish to match. A second quickly followed, coming again from Smiles: the best find in the Asian transfer market this summer. Unfortunately the Greenwich keeper, who had up to this stage proved their most sturdy player swiping away some substantial shots, was completely at fault managing to fumble a slow chipshot-cum-pass back into his own net. Two goals up and the tone of the match set firm, the Greenwich fan boys started to chirp up – one even tried to bribe the Ref with a pint! But our footballing prowess quietened their rowdy hype. Half time was blown — at a very abrupt time of 30 minutes — with the game perfectly poised. Would the mighty Force push on for a convincing victory? Or was it going to prove to be a game of 2 thirds? Though the match was fairly matched in the first period, Greenwich proved no match for our matchbox-loving Imperial 4s in the second. Swapping on Naveen Ghulam for the successful Smiles, some stellar wing play led to several corners and headed chances for that crucial 3-goal cushion/pillow/beanbag/sofa. Henry Rowett did the honour of securing said padding with an edge-of-the-box drive into the side netting, followed shortly after by a cutting counterattack move seeing Sam ‘Dzeko’ Duffield slide it under the keeper for our 4th goal of the game. The 5th goal was as comedic as it was tragic: a perfectly weighted chip from right-back Phil Gantner saw Dzeko again through on goal, only this time to be horribly chopped down by the opposition centre-half. Penalty duty – supposedly captain Schön’s domain – was undertaken by the in-form goal-scoring centre-half in search for his brace. A horrific attempt at a penalty ensued, followed only by a more horrific attempt at a parry from the keeper, followed again by yet poorer following in by the Greenwich defence, followed by the yet-worse shinpad finish from Dzeko himself which saw the ball dribble into the side netting off another feeble attempted save from the keeper. This goal put our victory beyond doubt, but in truth, football was the loser here. From then on, the Force divided and conquered the game, with the last of the goals coming from Marcello Valerio slotting away a composed finish to round off a comfortable win. Noticeable effort was shown from Schön and Rowett in midfield: the latter of who, despite the 5 goal surplus at the time, devoted a devastating crunch of a tackle to the opposition player, so eager was he not to lose any 50:50 challenges that day. Ankles are a small price to pay for unwavering commitment. Other mentions go out to Inigo ‘In-ya-go-son’ Torres and Phil Gantner for providing solidity and creativity at wingback, whilst Sander Van der Bie and Chris Rochester anchored us well at both ends of the pitch. Late in the game Guy Frankel came on, reigniting our attack and effectively creating chances for our forwards. As tackles were getting more and more reckless from the Greenwich SCAFFS, the final whistle was blown, only for us to find that at least 2 of our balls had been stolen, the other one having to be retrieved from the SCAFFS possession at the end! We even had to share a changing room… A post-match MacDonald’s ensured maximum team bonding over a victory that will serve as a confidence boost and set in motion a winning mentality in this burgeoning and talented squad of players. Peace out and Forza Fours!

Greenwich 0-6 Imperial College

Goals: Smiles Chrisanta x 2, Henry Rowett, Sam Duffield x 2, Marcello Valerio