Written by Phil Kay
Following a hugely successful Thursday night battle under the lights at Maiden Castle, United were quickly back in action away at Brandon United. The hosts sat 16th in the table whilst United were on the hunt for a seventh straight win in the league; a start to a Wearside campaign supposedly never seen before. [Editor’s Note: On account of not possessing the researching wizardry of Andy Zaltzman, I can’t confirm this, but it would definitely be the best start to a Durham United season since the University partnership]
Upon arrival at the Brandon United pitch, we were greeted with perhaps the last sunny match-day of the year; something that the veterans of DUAFC were quick to tell me to appreciate [Editor’s Note: Presumably Bramwell still thought it was freezing…].
Prior to kick off, captain Freddie Merrett alluded to the game as a ‘banana peel opportunity’, which I can resonate with. Having played a year of non-league football before arriving in Durham, going away to play teams on poor quality pitches with the opposition having nothing to lose does pose the threat of dropping points.
Durham United made three changes from Thursday night’s fixture with Ossie O’Neill, Seb Hopkins and Ben Crew all coming into the starting lineup.
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The first chance came just 90 seconds into the match when a bobbly pass was intercepted by a Brandon midfielder. He did well to offload and allow the striker to hit a shot, but it didn’t trouble Harry Archer in goal, as it sailed harmlessly over the bar.
Just 4 minutes later, United fashioned a chance of their own which started from Morgan Lant winning the ball inside the Brandon half. He passed it to Ben Crew who popped up on the right wing, and then then slid the ball down the line to Freddie Walton who cut it back to Seb Hopkins, but he saw his shot go just over the bar.
This was promising from United and looked to be the first of many attacks on the Brandon goal. However, this was not the case; for the next 15 minutes the game ebbed and flowed with neither team creating any clear-cut chances.
The referee was happy to let play go which meant the game turned into a sort of physical chess match [Editor’s Note: Like ‘Wizard Chess’ from Harry Potter, no doubt].
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The midfield for both teams were constantly pressing and, credit to Brandon, we struggled to progress the ball up the pitch and relied upon hitting balls down the channel for myself and the wingers to latch onto.
The next major chance came in the 20th minute when I brought down a clearance from the Brandon defender and went on a run down the right wing. Instead of cutting back onto my favoured left foot, I chose to hit a hard cross into the box which was met with a Ben Crew volley.
For someone who has been scoring for fun this season, I know that he would be disappointed to have missed from such close range, especially with the added pain of hearing the shot cannon off the post.
I felt like this was a turning point in the game; if we had scored there, I was sure that we would have gone on to score plenty of goals. However, the score remained 0-0 with both teams looking equally likely to get the first goal.
Eventually, it went Durham's way as the deadlock was broken in the 30th minute. An unlikely hero for Durham United, Morgan Lant, came up with the goods with a well-placed header from a Ben Crew Corner.
Set piece goals have been few and far between in United’s campaign so far and knowing that we will end up playing on some difficult pitches, being able to convert goals from set pieces is only going to help us.
The rest of the half was fairly even with both teams playing with an attacking mindset. The only major event came a couple of minutes before half-time, when Charlie Bramwell showcased his rugby skills by handling the ball to halt a Brandon counterattack.
An explicit example of football’s ‘dark arts’, which, somehow, resulted with the referee electing to keep the yellow card in his pocket.
HALF-TIME BRANDON UNITED 0 - 1 DURHAM UNITED
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The second half continued much the same, with Durham having the larger share of possession but still struggling to break down the Brandon defence. Despite this, as the game progressed, Brandon began to tire as they sought an equaliser, meaning that more gaps opened up at the back allowing the likes of myself, Crew and Walton to get in behind.
It wasn’t until the 81st minute that this resulted in a clear chance, however. When it did arrive, a great pass from Hopkins found Walton, but his first touch around the goalkeeper took him slightly too wide. By the time he’d assessed that the angle was too tight on his left foot, the goal was well guarded and the chance was gone.
Just two minutes later, one of the Brandon players was sin-binned for appearing to threaten the linesman after a tight offside call [Editor’s Note: Having checked the footage, the player was a yard offside, and the sin-binned player was facing the wrong way at the time].
This meant that Brandon would play the remainder of the game with 10 men and, therefore, they were willing to chuck the kitchen sink at us to get a point.
Fortunately for us, we have by far the best defensive record in the league, having conceded only three goals in our first six matches. Therefore, I was confident that we would be able to see out the game and get the three points.
Our defence stood strong and, apart from Brandon scaring us with an offside goal, they failed to get back on level terms, and we claimed our 7th league win in a row.
In my opinion, this was not a performance that would have wowed spectators, but it is one that got us over the line. A lot of the squad were no doubt feeling the aftereffects of Thursday’s bout with South Moor, but the number of games is only going to increase, especially with the BUCS season kicking off this week.
There are a lot of positives to take, but there is still a lot of work to be done if we are to keep up this form until the end of the season.
FULL-TIME: BRANDON UNITED 0 - 1 DURHAM UNITED
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Player of the Match: Morgan Lant
Line-Up: Harry Archer, Morgan Lant (Goal 30’), Ossie O’Neill, Ellis Challinor, Freddie Merrett, Alex Dinan, Freddie Walton, Charlie Bramwell, Phil Kay, Seb Hopkins, Ben Crew
Substitutes: Marko Porozovs, Freddy Alcock, Chris Wild, Sam Benoist (Yellow Card), Ben Pearson
Written by Phil Kay
Edited by George Gompertz
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