Every club at times has to look deep inside itself and ask itself “do we have a Julio Arca?”. For some clubs collective grit and determination never to say die is their Julio Arca; for others their Julio Arca is the ability to produce a moment of inspiration when least expected. For us, he’s a small Argentinean who plays on the left side. In a first half of quite remarkable turgidity, he decided to jink down the left wing past several players towards the opposite goal from us. In my mind he then played a couple of one-twos with Tommy Smith. When I got home and watched Sky Sports News, they had some false pictures of Smith scuffing a shot and it rather luckily coming back to Arca. Do not believe the cathode ray tube – my mind’s eye never lies. In both Arca then had space inside the left side of the box and rifled in the shot. We asked “can you do anything else Julio?” and he replied “yes, watch this” as, a minute or so later, a ball came in from the Walsall left into the far side of the goal right in front of where we were sitting – he appeared from nowhere and headed the ball out from underneath the bar. “Ole” indeed. Other than that the first half was pretty forgettable but you won’t hear me complaining about being ahead.
We were happily sitting in the King George V supping Guinness and eating pies from the chip shop next door (football supporters’ heaven) when the team news cam through. Poom in goal obviously but then a back four of Original Dazza (nee Wright – injured I heard later), Babb (nee Breen – injured; or Jockie – compassionate leave), Ringo (back in the centre of the back four – good) and Arca at left back (hurray!). Three left footed players in the back four – as they were defending in front of us in the first half I felt myself leaning to the left to compensate – strange. In midfield Oster was moved back to the left wing and Macateer held up the other side with Thirwell and Whitely doing their usual job – a somewhat narrow midfield and not the most creative for a game we all agreed we were going for a win and not a draw. Kyle partnered Smith up front with Stew on the bench. No place on the bench for Piper – we’d half been expecting he might get there as he’d travelled with the squad and we need to start getting him match fit.
So the second half we were hoping the game would liven up a bit but more importantly we would stay ahead. It certainly never hit great heights but the second half was quite a bit better than the first in entertainment terms – helped by the fact perhaps that we were attacking our end. Unfortunately we didn’t stay ahead. Walsall were hardly very threatening but managed to equalise early in the second half (apparently Poom was fouled but I saw nowt). Fortunately we went back in front very quickly. Kyle, as he so often does, was making the life of the Walsall back four miserable and opening up a lot of room for others. However, earlier in the second half he had also had two great goal chances. The first, the ball came to him in space in the left side of the box but he hit a left foot shot that frankly really didn’t get very close at all. Something remarkable happened however, instead of a collective groan, the SAFC supporters shouted encouragement to him – Kylie in winning over supporter’s sensation? He then sent in a powerful header that the goalie did well to knock on to the bar. So we were all delighted for him when he got on the end of an Oster corner to knock in a clean, powerful header. Kyle was clearly delighted (I know it’s hard to tell but I think he is sincere – we see enough fake “joy” from players on the telly) and ran over to the Sunderland fans – like Tommy Smith the previous week (who admittedly jumped over some hoardings – Kylie didn’t) he got booked for his troubles – well done ref, got to clamp down on players disgracefully acknowledging the people who pay to keep them in a living.
We continued to play a controlled passing game. While in the first half, this had come across as unimaginative now it seemed like a mature sensible game plan – perspective is everything. Oster went off with quarter of an hour or so to go and Stew came on. Pretty quickly we had another one – a corner came over and that man Kyle got a nice flick that came down handily for Stew to stab in from my favourite spot for strikers – within a leg’s length of the penalty spot. Got to hand it to Stew – he seems to be developing the Pop Robson/Stan Cummins knack of hanging around in good “stabby in” places – something I was very critical of him not doing earlier on this season.
To be fair, Walsall might have pulled one back late on but I think they and we knew the chances of them pulling two back were very slim indeed. Near the end Mick Mac added a nice touch by allowing Kyle to come off to get his own ovation. He knows that sections of the crowd seem determined not to be won over to supporting him so it must be nice for the young lad to hear the crowd cheering him and him alone as he walked off – well done Mick. Byefield came on to his old ground but the Walsall supporters were understandably depressed so seemed unable to either clap or boo him.
The whistle went with all the team down our end, which was nice as it meant that we could all celebrate 3 good points together (if that’s OK with you ref). A word about the travelling support – how the hell did you all get off work you lazy gits? I had been on my way home on Tuesday to pick up the car to go and get the wife when I’d heard the match was cancelled. I’d turned round, gone back to work and rearranged my stuff for Wednesday afternoon. I had imagined that few would be able to do that at such short notice. The end we had holds almost 2,000 and, except for a small block on the right hand side was pretty much full. How so many managed to get off with just 24 hours notice of the rearranged match is amazing. I know we have a fair few midlands-based supporters but that’s not going to count for more than a couple of hundred at most. Well however you did it, hats off lads and lasses – it was great to see so many there.
Pretty good preparation for the FA Cup quarter final methinks. There is a sense of optimism creeping into SAFC supporters – but the pessimists needn’t be too concerned – I’m sure something will come along to worry us all again soon.