Report on last nite's match
Derry City 2 – Longford Town 3
Going into last nights match there was a bad feeling in the air. Pre-season results didn't auger too well, for City, as we struggled against opposition that we had easily beaten in the past. The normal air of expectancy and hope that we could challenge the top Dublin clubs for the title seemed to be missing and it was as if we were setting our sights on mid-table security. Since we last won the league, in 97, we have been on the slide, and in the past few years we have rightly been concentrating on getting the books to balance. But as a team on the park we have wained, from being a team to be feared by every club in the league, to a team, as displayed last night, that looks very naieve and unorganised.
And it all started so well. With Eamonn Docherty scoring the gloom turned to optimism. Maybe the results we had in pre-season were due to ring-rustiness. The goal had come like a bolt out of the blue, a long ball up field was flicked into the path of Padraig Moran. Moran took the ball in his stride but was immediately tackled by a Longford defender, only for the ball to drop invitingly into the Eamonn Docherty, who struck an excellent shot which took a slight deflection off Stephen O’Briens hand before ending up in the top corner of the Longford net. But then reality struck again. Up until last year Derry had been renowned as a team that kept it tight at the back, nothing was given away easily and City almost went into every game guarenteed of a point, so good was our defensive record. Derry teams have had some good keepers of late, Tim Dalton, Tony O'Dowd, Russell Payne and Alan Gough, to mention a few, but in Andy Petterson Derry have a keeper that looks nervy and this is transpiring onto the defense. But why should such a highly rated keeper look so intimidated? Collectively he has played over 100 league games with Portsmouth, Charlton and West Brom, where large attendances would have watched him. Coming from this background you would expect a self-confident keeper that commands his area and organises his defence. Longford's first real attack highlighted his frailties. Longford’s left winger and Derry’s Kevin Deery challenged for the ball. The referee harshly judged the Derry defender to have fouled the Longford attacker and it was from the resultant free kick beside the corner flag that the Derry goal was breached for the first time. The Derry keeper, instead of commanding his 18-yard box and clearing a ball that was swung in to within 4 or five yards of his goal, collapsed like a daisy, and was sitting on his bum when the Longford centre-half, Ferguson knocked the ball home.
This early blow seemed rubbed off on the rest of the Derry defence, players were wildly swinging legs, trying to clear balls, striking them off each other, and this was highlighted by the second goal. Eric Lavine, who has been a scourge of Derry many time before, punished the childish defending to strike the ball low to the Derry net past the startled, invisible and non-existent keeper Petterson. It was a terrible goal to concede and my mind casts back to the look on Lavine's face as he celebrated the goal. It was one of amazement and laughter, amazement that he must have been out numbered by 4 or 5 Derry players who seemed to have an age to clear the ball, and then laughter at how terrible and how much like a joke the defending was.
And as if things couldn't get any worse, they did. As Petterson half-saved a Longford strike Kevin Deery dithered on the ball and before he knew it, the ball was taken off his toe and in the net, courtesy of Alan Kirby. Deery will learn from his mistake but to the amazement of many City fans, Eddie McCallion stood toe-to-toe with Deery and grabbed him by the neck. In my opinion that was a disgrace, a player that has been with a premiership club almost assaulting a fellow team-mate, one who is only 18 or 19 and has made his first real error in senior soccer. I expected a reaction from the bench, but Mahon took up his usual position, leaning against the dugout, unmoved.
With barely half an hour gone, I was embarassed by what was going on. City, 3-1 down and I was worried the scoreboard was going to run out of numbers, so bad did the team look. We continually launched the ball up to our two strikers, so-much-so that they almost seemed to be shocked when the ball was played on the deck. In another embarrassing moment, Mahon withdrew Ciaran Martyn after 33 minutes. I wondered why Mahon did it, was he trying to make Martyn look bad? Giving him a collective 15 minutes in 3 pre-season games and then starting him in the first league game, as if to make him look bad. He was replaced by McGlynn, who had looked sharp in pre-season, scoring 2 goals in the 3 games. But why had Kevin not started him?? The rest of the first half seemed like a daze, everyone was so shocked that we could be 3-1 down at home, to a team, like ourselves, touted to be in danger of the drop!
Eamonn Docherty had an opportunity immediately on the restart, but his header went straight at the keeper from 6 yards. Other than this the second half resumed as the first had ended. Petterson looking like a nervy goalkeeper, playing his first game for his schools under 12 team. He came off his line to take a ball and almost ended up falling over a Longford attacker. Then when a Derry defender was shielding a through ball back to the keeper, no one knew what was going on as a scramble ensued, and the ball ended up having to be taken off the line by a City defender.
As Liam Coyle entered the fray, even his biggest supporters felt that he couldn't save sorry City this time. Even if he did score two surely the defence would give away more goals. Try he did and he too had a heading opportunity but ended up doing the same as Doc, powering the header straight at O'Brien when it looked easier to score.
As the game became niggly Derry lost Gary Beckett, yellow and then red-carded for the the same incident, a kick out at Longford’s Barry Ferguson. It was clear who Liam Coyle blamed for the incident, as he reminstrated towards Alan Mathews and thanked him for getting Beckett sent off. The ironic thing was that Ferguson was actually attempting to catch Beckett from behind, but the referee and linesman ignored this attempt and didn't even caution him for his part in the incident.
With Derry down to 10 men Mahon pulled City’s attacking wide midfielders back and attempted to play them as wing-backs. Just as the game appeared as if it was going to finish with no further goals, Coyle and Padraig Moran played a one-two and Moran headed the ball into McGlynn's path and he drove the ball home. But it was too little too late, the game finished as Stephen O'Brien, a small looking keeper came and took an inswinging corner from Sean Friars, if only Petterson could have done that in the early minutes, the game could have taken a different perspective.
