Football is full of cliches.
"Goals win games"
"It was a game of two halves"
"A good time to score"
" Some tired legs out there"
but, there is nothing quite like the "Cup upset" and that is exactly what we have enjoyed tonight as the crazy gang of the olden days did a job on their London neighbours West Ham. Before kickoff, pundits were asking questions like:
"How many will West Ham put past AFC Wimbeldon?"
"How long before West Ham break the deadlock?"
The boys sitting rock bottom of League One and a full 58 league places below the Hammers had different ideas however. There was no way that they were going to lay down and let West Ham play fancy football. Now bear in mind that this is a West Ham team who recently beat Arsenal 1-0 and who have started to play with a little bit of flair. Maybe that was the problem tonight? I suspect that as Mark Noble, Felipe Anderson and Andy Carroll stepped off the team bus in Kingston upon Thames in South West London, they were thinking about how many they were going to bang past the League One strugglers.
The boys from AFC Wimbledon didn't read the script and they came out of the blocks all guns blazing and put some great moves together in the early stages of this FA Cup 4th round clash at Kingsmeadow. They weren't playing like the hatchet-men of yore, they were actually playing the ball around the park and were the better team in the early exchanges. No one could accuse them of playing dirty like their teams from back in the day, indeed the first booking did not come until the 66th minute and it was a West Ham player who found his way into the book. The game had just the two yellow cards and they were both awarded to West Ham. It was a clean game of football, no doubt about it..
Vinny Jones, a legendary former player from the Crazy Gang and the guy squeezing Gazza's balls in the post photo at the beginning was a pundit on BT Sport tonight. He said that any team with seven or eight lads wearing gloves were there for the taking and whether it was a tongue in cheek comment or not, there was one team hungrier than other here tonight. The League One boys were well and truly up for it, and were just willing to put in those hard yards more than their Premier League opponents, who maybe thought Appiah, Wagstaff and Nightingale were below their standard. That's a dangerous train of thought in any sport and in any business.
When AFC Wimbledon took the lead in the 34th minute, you couldn't say that it was against the run of play. They were worthy of their lead. Now that they had the lead though, surely the real world order would re-assert itself as AFC Wimbledon collectively shit themselves and West Ham take the game by the scruff of the neck. Well nobody told Scott Wagstaff!
He had his own ideas though. He got the better of Obiang in a tussle in the middle of the park, and after some Kamikaze defending by Obiang who was the last man, Wagstaff found himself in the clear. He still had a lot to do, but backed himself and his strength as he knocked the ball in front of himself and ran onto it. he gave the keeper the eyes on the edge of the box and expertly slotted the ball in the direction the keeper was coming from. Aint gravity a bitch Adrián? He was gone the other way, and Issac Newton himself couldn't do anything to make him go the other way.
2-0 up now with 4 minutes left in the half. Their manager and many fans now all thought the same thing, hang on til half time, a 2-0 half time lead would be huge and not something that was expected at all, the home team were 9-1 and 10-1 with most bookies to bag an unlikely win in this match.
Manuel Pellegrini would have been happy to get his players in at half time so that he could give them a good bollicking and tell them exactly what they needed to do to get back into the game.
Scott Wagstaff didn't get the memo and in the 1st minute of the second half the unthinkable happened. AFC Wimbledon launched another decent attack and the ball was played hopefully into the box. Wagstaff flicked the ball expertly and the ball nestled in the far corner. 3-0...... AFC Wimbledon were 3-0 up. No one saw this coming, not even Vinny Jones!
West Ham to their credit fought their way back into the game with goals from Pérez and a beaut of a free kick from Felipe Anderson, and now after the 71 minutes the match was poised perfectly, and West Ham prodded and probed and looked for that little breakthrough. Who would the hero be?
In the end it wasn't a West Ham player. Instead, one time Arsenal target Toby Sibbick ghosted in at the back post to make it 4-2 in a pulsating FA cup tie at Kingsmeadow.
Hats off AFC Wimbeldon, you guys deserved the win, and I certainly enjoyed the game as a neutral. Commiserations @mikey, what a game though..
Thanks a million for reading as always.
Peace Out.
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