Off to Thurrock where reading a book in public is formally considered to be assisted dying. The Academy team showing slow development and in need of a win. Thurrock in and around us in the table represented a decent opportunity to notch up the next W.

Numbers were not a problem for the Academy a full bench and whilst Chris would have preferred Rob Sanders out on the pitch, he did have a full time job managing subs. At the start of the match both teams settled into their respective game styles early on. The Academy trying to focus on shorter passing and working there way up the pitch through lines of least resistance and Thurrock attempting to dominate the middle with the wide areas only coming into play once in the final third.

Thurrock had the first effort a shot drilled straight at Scott in the Academy goal. Easy peasey that one for Scott. Thurrock would learn that it would take a little more then that to get onto the scoreboard. The Academy came back and had the better of the around the midpoint of the first half. Generally, successfully keeping Thurrock out of our D and having a few decent incursions into theirs. When the first goal came it was probably deserved. A stick tackle in the D saw a rightly awarded short. Chris had a decent effort from the top of the D into the keepers pad. The ball broke kindly for us finding its way to me following up from the ejection and my push at goal found a defenders foot behind the goalie and on its way into the net. Chris stepped up to take the flick, low to the keepers right. The keeper got a bit closer to it then was probably comfortable for Chris but regardless not close enough and 1-0 up.

Thurrock kept to their script and gradually took hold of the game. Our possessions in their half and D started to dwindle and we got pushed back. That all said the equaliser, when it came, whilst not exactly against the run of play didn’t follow a set of clear-cut chances. They did have a decent shout for a flick, but the umpires ruled that the keeper was behind the defender and had a reasonable chance of saving. 1-1 at halftime felt fair enough but I can’t have been the only one fearing that Thurrock would only get stronger.

Now dear reader you must take a break from reading this crafted match report. You must go to your chosen musical device or app. Spotify, Amazon music, perhaps you are old school with some vinyl or tape deck. But whatever you have go to it, open and play ‘The Life of Riley, by the Lighting Seeds.’ This is very important. For younger readers or those older with failing memories the life of Riley was the backing track, back in the glory days of the Barclays sponsorship of the Premier League, for the regular goal of the month and goal of the season competition on Match of the Day. Well, the good people of Thurrock were about to witness what the kids call ‘prime Barclays.’

We had, an increasingly rare foray into the Thurrock half. Chris Minor driving at the defence. I managed to find space fairly central in the D and Chris fired the ball into me. Now those of you football fans with a, how can I say this politely, a nerdish disposition will be aware of the metric ‘expected goals,’ or xg for short. That is where every chance is given a numeric value. An xg of 1 is a chance that has a certainty of being scored and an xg of 0.1 is a chance that has a low percentage of being scored. You get the idea. As the ball came into me, I calculated that the xg of the chance I was about to get was fairly high a good 0.6 xg I estimate. However, I’m a slave to the data, 0.6 is good but with the 4D chess match whirling away in my mind I sensed a glancing blow to the ball to take onto the Thurrocks defenders stick would considerably raise that 0.6 up to a 0.8 maybe even a 0.85 now there’s some odds I like. I had my back to goal, he on the other hand was facing goal and coming in at pace. Glance off my stick, onto his and he did the rest with some aplomb. That’s my story, I’m sticking to it and there’s not a judge or jury of 12 good men and women brave and true that will overturn that.

2-1. Nice. I think apart from perhaps the final minutes Thurrock went onto to dominate. We were entirely pinned back limited to only a few break aways with limited players supporting those. There were numerous short corners to them I genuinely failed to keep count. Were they all legitimate? Probably not but a number were. Pinky nearly had his head taken off by one ferocious shot that was definitely not hitting the back board. The double tapped short that saw James sent to the hallway for ‘breaking’ was a particular low moment. The Thurrock tendency on shorts was to strike form the top or slip to their right. They got back into the game with their one and only slip to the left, the ‘2’ runner going the other side.

Quick word here on Scott Parsons. He was called into action on numerous occasions in the second half and stood up brilliantly. Even managing to impress the opposition.

Into the last fifteen minutes and two strikes reasonably close together saw Thurrock start to pull away. You couldn’t argue that the goals weren’t coming but they were gut punches, both just squeaking across the line not even bothering back board or net.

In the last 5 we put a spurt on. Issac Minor nearly got on the end of my, through ball but then set up a potential grandstand finish with a deflection in at the far post following my shot. Was my shot going in he asked after the game? Not sure, the best I could say about my effort was that it was very ‘post adjacent,’ Issac doing absolutely the right thing and making sure. Having got into the right position he converted a 0.99 xg chance. In the final minute we huffed and we puffed but never got that final chance. Good and enjoyable game played against a decent bunch. Pity we couldn’t leave with the needed W but there’s always next week – or the week after the slip week.

The Team: Scott Parsons, Fraser McLauchlan, Simon Roffe, Simon Parsons, Gary MacDonnell, James McKay, Chris Minor, Issac Minor, Aiden Pass, Sam Severn, Charlie Sanders, Doug Muncey, William McKay, Darshan Gandhi.

Man of the Match – Scott Parsons and it wasn’t close. I reckon even Thurrock players voted for Scott.