Match Report
Ryman League: Division One South
 Horsham YMCA 0 |  Dulwich Hamlet 2Clunis 5 Gradwell 22 |
Match Ball Sponsor: MR KERSLEY | Words by Tom Norris |
MANAGER CUMBERBATCH DISAPPOINTED WITH DESIRELESS YM
Horsham YMCA were made to pay for a dismal opening half hour of football at Gorings Mead on Saturday afternoon, as they were dealt their twenty-fifth league defeat of the season at the hands of Dulwich Hamlet. The result tightens the loop of the hangman’s noose on the Division One South strugglers and with all three teams above them picking up valuable points at the weekend, relegation looks all but set in stone for John Cumberbatch’s men.
|
Match
Stats |
||
|
Horsham YMCA |
V |
Dulwich Hamlet |
|
1 |
Shots On
Target |
9 |
|
3 |
Shots
Off Target |
7 |
|
0 |
Offsides |
3 |
|
7 |
Corners |
8 |
|
7 |
Fouls |
12 |
|
2 |
Yellow
Cards |
1 |
|
0 |
Red
Cards |
0 |
‘There was no real desire out there today and no one was concentrating. I can’t really understand it either, because before going out we spoke about the fact that they are a very good side and that they are on a very, very good run. Quite a few of our players have got connections with Dulwich, and even those who haven’t played there know quite a lot of their players. Therefore, it was one of those games where we felt we shouldn’t need lifting, but we went out there and we were poor.’
YM struggled to find their feet from the word go, and it looked as if it would be yet another long afternoon when the visitors broke the deadlock inside the first five minutes of the half. Midfielder Zac Henry gave the ball away cheaply, which allowed the dynamic Nyren Clunis to skip all too easily past three YM defenders before coolly slotting past ‘keeper Mark Fox.
Matters were then made worse for the hosts with only a quarter of an hour of the game played, when midfielder Scott Harris was forced from the field due to injury. The ever-lively Clunis continued to trouble the YM defence, which looked shaky and inexperienced at times, particularly in the absence of Cumberbatch’s son Marc, and former skipper Glen Woodburn who was released from the club last week.
Cumberbatch commented, ‘I felt I had to release Glen, not just for financial reasons, but for other reasons why, from my point of view, he wasn’t a particularly good captain for the side. He probably would be for a team that is much higher up the table and doing well, but for a side that is struggling; I didn’t feel he had what was needed to lift the team. It’s not as if he’s gone and now we’re leaking loads of goals, it’s just in the other areas where we are lacking.’
Dulwich then doubled their lead mid way through the first half when a well directed free kick was met by the diving head of striker Rob Gradwell. The hosts continued to give the ball away cheaply, and it wasn’t until the thirty-fifth minute that YM finally decided to grab a foot hold in the game. One bright note saw midfielder Henry redeem himself for his earlier mistake, linking well with Tom Youle down the YM left, before Gavin Gordon failed to make the decisive connection needed from the resulting cross. The bustling Henry then had a shot from range cleared off the Dulwich line, before an encouraging end to the half for the hosts was overshadowed with an effort from the visitors’ Vernon Francis, which just clipped the YM bar.
Cumberbatch added, ‘I felt as if we played with no desire and as if we didn’t really care about the result or what we were doing. We just weren’t at the races.
‘In the second half I thought that we were a lot better and we put a lot more pressure on them, but without really creating much. In fact, even though we weren’t playing very well we created better chances in the first half, but again, because we were a bit lacklustre, I felt that we were poor getting onto those chances.’
The second half was far less exuberant from either side, but it was Cumberbatch’s men who went closest to scoring inside the early exchanges. Tony Reid, in his first home game back from suspension, saw his thumping header cannon agonisingly of the visitor’s crossbar, but other than that the hosts provided very little in the way of clear-cut chances. Dulwich’s Ray Powell should have extended the visitor’s lead with a quarter of the game to go, but with YM ‘keeper Fox off his line, the striker could only lob his shot into the retreating path of defender Hugh Samuels to clear.
Cumberbatch found it difficult to turn to a usually spirited bench and with Kieron Mercer the only attacking option available, the hosts failed to break through a solid Dulwich back line. And with the likes of Damian Ramsamy and Kevin Lott unavailable, YM looked short of quality on the ball and the ability of a single player being able to change the game.
‘We are missing Kevin Lott big time, and in all sorts of ways. That for me has been the main loss. Dulwich are a good team and they’ve been scoring a lot of goals lately, so it could be said that we did well to keep them to 2-0 but that just isn’t good enough. There were certain signs of good things, but just not enough and so I am bitterly disappointed.’
YM reached a landmark of conceding 100 league goals last week away at Walton and Hersham, a stat which hasn’t gone unnoticed by boss Cumberbatch.
‘We’ve had something like 107 goals scored against now, and although a lot of them have been because of the defence, on the whole it’s mainly been down to where we lose possession in midfield. The ball has gone forward and we have been in an attacking position and then we’ve suddenly found ourselves on the back foot. It’s easy to look and say that perhaps it’s the goalkeeper, or perhaps it’s the defence, but it’s the other problems around the team as to why we actually end up giving away goals.’
YM now find themselves twelve points and two games adrift of nearest rivals Corinthian Casuals and a mountainous fifteen points from safety. Cumberbatch’s men face a tough task away at Sittingbourne on Saturday and will look for a much needed three points to hopefully kick-start what would be a miraculous, but seemingly belated, Ryman league revival.
YM (4-4-2): Fox, Dudley, Reid (c), Samuels, Plummer, Abnett (Mercer 67), Sesay, Harris (B Bowra 19), Z Henry, Gordon, Youle
Unused Subs: Gradielski, M Cumberbatch
