Old Wykehamist Football Club

Match Report
25/10/2009
OWFC vs. Old Radleians
5-0 (Hurndall 3, Kiley, Masefield)

High Fives All Round after Radley Rout

Arsène Wenger is sixty this week, an event which has prompted much retrospection in the game. The inevitable question emerges: how much has le professeur influenced Les Autres Bleus, OWFC? On the evidence of last Saturday’s pitiless thrashing of miserable Radley, one would have to say beaucoup.

Although Arsène’s views on the new sausages at The Queen would perhaps diverge from the general assessment (excellent), his philosophy has saturated the Wykehamist mindset. How else can one explain this vignette from the first half? The ball is calmly moved across the defence: from Rann to Wakiwaka to Underwood. Pausing at the half, the full-back does a rapid bit of calculus, then slides the perfect through-ball over the slick turf. Goal-hungry striker Taro Kiley finds himself one-on-one – everyone expects a chip. Instead he unselfishly lays the ball square to the better-placed Hurndall who strokes the ball home. While not all the credit for this display can go to the former Grampus Eight guru, his emphasis on teamwork and crisp passing was evident in all the Woks’ better passages of play.

The urbane Wenger aside, man of the day was young Fred Hurndall, whose hat-trick crowned an excellent performance and was a testament to his blossoming strike partnership with Kiley. They played with admirable intelligence and effort throughout. Hurndall’s first came early in proceedings, a cool finish past Radley’s stand-in goalie after an incisive through-ball from Vernon had split the defence like an axe through a mouldy cantaloupe. His second came in a similar fashion when the keeper could only deflect a low cross into the young striker’s path. The third was the aforementioned gift from the industrious and skilful Kiley, who had already stretched Winchester’s lead, exploiting the full width of the goal when poking a shot past the beleaguered Radley custodian with the outside of his right boot.

Radley, last year nuggety and indomitable, now appear one-dimensional and toothless. In large part this is because of changes in the OWFC: last year’s disappointment showed them that the capacity for scintillating football does not guarantee success. Tenacity matters too, a quality the midfield, and Gael Clichy’s slightly stockier doppelganger, James Walters, showed in spades. Even the diminutive Vernon was to be seen outleaping Radley oafs to win headers, an action surely copied from the influential Redhead, who continued his ‘never-having-lost-a-header-and-that-includes-against-Gordon’ streak, which stretches back over a decade. Stevens and Merriott shared the other berth in the middle with equal parts verve and bite.

Tenacity and flair are not, however, mutually exclusive, as was demonstrated by Masefield, who, subdued in the first half, came to life after sixty minutes. Picking the ball up at half-way he skipped past three challenges and surged into the box. A lunging leg deflected his shot wide. He took the corner himself: not his best, it cannoned off the first defender. But then Masefield’s grand plan was revealed: collecting the ricochet, he danced inside and rocketed his shot just inside the far post from twenty yards.

This stunner finally silenced Radley’s lacklustre resistance (Neale was called in to action with a reflex save) and in the final twenty minutes the Wykehamists showcased some of their best football, working triangles and probing the penalty area. Nevertheless, they will play better football this term. They will undoubtedly face better teams too, but no one can complain after a 5-0 stuffing. Not even Monsieur Wenger.