Balham (a)
I was confident going into the game, confident in the first half, confident for the majority of the second half, confident we’d get a chance to score a winner at 1-1, confident that in fact we hadn’t lost the game at the end. We must have entered some parallel universe at the end of Shitty Mattress Promenade.
It was my first time at that ground. I know most of our crowd will have been before, and I’m probably not breaking news to many people, but it’s fair to say it’s at the less-glamorous end of the non-league away spectrum. I’m not in the business of digging out grounds and it is absolutely worth saying that the welcome was warm and the Guinness was grand and that the pavilion was great. It’s just not much like walking up Wembley Way on the approach. I don’t know anything about Balham’s history, but one suspects they were founded in SW12 somewhere and it must pain them to have to travel to Croydon to host ungrateful could-be local rivals. I imagine the win probably helped, though.
In an almost-genuine case of “we’d have been quicker walking”, the section of the Irish Lot travelling had plenty of time in traffic at Streatham Vale to peruse the teamsheet. The returning Noah Kelo was straight into the 11 in place of the suspended Deji “The Engine” Adeosun. I’ve chatted a bit on Deji of late. His performances in midfield remained a beacon of hope during our bleak midwinter. He was bound to be missed. There was plenty of continuity elsewhere in the team though and, given our battering of Fleet, I expected the lads to come back with three.
The first half did nothing to dissuade me. There were few chances for either team, but we looked solid at the back and happy enough in possession. When Mario continued his good form with a goal late in the half, we looked decent value for it. The goal was Quiassaca at his wily best- engaging a fullback in a test of footspeed and upper body strength, winning the battle and being clever with the resulting possession. Whereas last week he squared for Shay, on Saturday he found the corner with a finish that possibly only he knew he had judged perfectly, the ball rolling in at a pace which had most of the support and his team mates clenching their arse cheeks in hope.
The second 45 was 30 minutes of what might have been. The first was a chance that one probably would have bet their entire salary on Shay slotting home which, somehow, missed the outside of the post by a millimetre. The second was an unerring first-time finish from the same man, the redirection of a drilled cross from a decent distance which found the corner beautifully but which was ruled out for an offside which seemed unlikely in the circumstances, but which was ultimately upheld.
We were inches from being 0-3 ahead and the game being over. The points being tucked away. Them’s very much the breaks. We’ve seen ourselves defeated by bad luck of late and, potentially, by our reaction to it. But there was no throwing up of hands at Balham. We held firm and ploughed on until, from a corner, we were breached. And then, potentially from our determination to regain the advantage, we were breached again by a fine lobbed finish (I think) from a ball behind that evaded a defence that had looked broadly pretty comfortable for the previous 70 minutes. Them’s the breaks.
Two home games in a row, now. Camberley and Cobham. Saturday and Tuesday. Teams below us in the division. We probably need to square off a decent haul of points from these fixtures as there then follows a run of games where we’ll go in as underdogs. Abbey Rangers, Knaphill, Croydon, Farnham, all lads in the playoffs or pissing the league. So Camberley and Cobham, you feel, require Fleet Town levels from our lads. And maybe a bit of good fortune too, fortune which I don’t think we’ve enjoyed really since Balham at our place months ago.
Balham was a small dent in HMS Get Up the Fucking Table.
No dents at IF, lads. We move.
Up the Stripes.
📸 Photo by Sam Conquest/@iamsam28
