|
Date: 20 April 2004
At the beginning of this match both teams had an outside chance of the play-offs, if they won. So at the end, with the match (fairly) drawn, both clubs could effectively kiss good-bye to their chances this season (which are now just "mathematical"). But neither had cause for complaint. By half past nine the Bournemouth fans definitely had the most to cheer, because our team had been on the ascendancy throughout the second period. We felt we really needed more than three minutes of injury time, and then we could win it. As the teams entered the tunnel Jorgensen, who has desperately tried to score a goal throughout his loan period, hung back and tried to get the fans to acknowledge him, but the fans were more interested in lauding "Fee - ney!" and "Ne-il Moss Moss Moss!" Deservedly.
No-one could be accused of selfishness, though, despite the desire to score. Jorgensen had chances for himself, but also unselfishly passed the ball to others in better scoring positions on occasions. And it was he who fed Feeney on the 75th minute to give him the chance to score the goal. Similarly, Feeney passed at least one golden scoring opportunity to Hayter per half - the second half one being an absolute sitter - but Hayter couldn't increase his goal scoring tally on this night. Hayter's corner kicks were poor too (and we had so many; I stopped counting when we got into double figures!), because he played nearly all of them 'short.' But he made up for that by always getting back into the goal-mouth to defend Luton corners, and in particularly making one fabulous goal-line clearance in the first half.
The game had started badly for Bournemouth, when despite numerous Luton fouls the referee seemed never to penalise them. (Appalling Luton time wasting - including fake 'injuries' - wasn't penalised in the second half either.) But the referee wasn't so reluctant to penalise a foul on a Luton player after the first quarter of an hour, and Luton's Steve Howard used his clear aerial advantage to score an easy goal off the resultant free kick. Although Luton dominated the first half, the very vocal visiting supporters never despaired, anticipating (rightly) that matters would be very different after the break when Boscombe would be attacking the goal at the away fans' end.
On the stroke of half-time a blatant Luton hand-ball in their penalty area - which could clearly be seen by Bournemouth fans a whole ground's-length away - was apparently not spotted by the referee, who left the pitch to loud jeers from our supporters.
The team line-up (with my scores out of ten) was :
|
|
Moss (7);
Buxton (5), Broadhurst (6), C Fletcher (6), Cummings (7);
Hayter (7), Browning (6), Purches (6), Jorgensen (6);
Feeney (8), Holmes (5).
|
