The
present Old Boys football team created a piece of club history for itself on
Saturday when it defeated Waihopai 4-nil in their Chatham cup round one clash at
Waverley Park.
BeeJay....Brendon Robinson "pushes off, I might
add" the dynamic
challenge of Waihopai's John Rikkerink
It wasn’t the win that was historic but the fact that as a result the club will have its name on the Churchill Rose Bowl trophy for the first time in its (Old Boys) forty-eight year existence.
The trophy was donated by the late Ernie Churchill in 1956 to be presented to the Southland team that progresses furtherest in the prestigious New Zealand wide knockout competition.
Ironically
the Brigadiers club won the trophy for the first four seasons, but when that
club went into recess in 1959 to be replaced by the new Old Boys set-up the
tenure stopped.
With the
third Southland entry, McLellan Motors Queens Park, losing out by 3 goals to one
in its game against Queenstown at Frankton the Smiths City sponsored Old Boys
team has won that honour for the 2007 season.
ADVERT:....Waihopai's Wade Griffin wears NIKE boots
It
wasn’t all one-way-traffic at Waverley Park on Saturday despite the 4-nil
scoreline as Waihopai had periods of domination but lacked the ability to score
goals when opportunities arose.
Chris Langley gets in front of Frank O'Boyle as he did
quite often.
(In the background,
hands on knees is one Hayden Edwards who's dad Craig
is the GM of Auckland City FC.....how's that for some good detective work then.)
On the
other hand Old Boys leading striker Frank O’Boyle showed them how-to by
grabbing two goals from the limited chances he had. O’Boyle striking with the
first goal at the 10 minute mark and the fourth a minute from time.
Frank O'Boyle
In between
those efforts Scott Kiddey and Campbell Edwards added the other two to the Old
Boys tally.
Skiddey (red)....heads for his goal pursued by Waihopai's
Chris Langley
Waihopai’s
goal scoring efforts were negated by a combination of poor finishing and some
strong structured play by the Old Boys defenders in particular its central
sweeper Gordon Lamont who worked tirelessly all afternoon to minimise his
opponents attacks on goal.
Gordy (highest red) did venture forward at times and cause
a bit of havoc
Old Boys next opponent will be announced when the round two fixtures are drawn this week.
At Frankton, Queenstown proved too strong for a Queens Park unit reduced from eleven to nine players with the sending off of Matty Burgess and Danny Rosel for disciplinary offences.
Queenstown
also lost Rodrigo Oliveira for the same reason. The game will be the subject of
a referees report following a nasty flare-up described by one spectator as “an
all-in brawl” involving players and people from the sideline during the second
half.
Tempers reached boiling point as ref Alex Wilson moves in
to sort it out.
At the time Park was leading 1-nil courtesy of a stunning individual goal from Billy Haslam.
The first half of play was also notable for a spectacular save by Queens Park goalkeeper Chris Pearson from a Ruy Pires penalty kick.
In the
second spell after referee Alex Wilson had finally settled the players down and
dealt with the incident Queenstown began to control the game and with the help
of an own-goal from Park and goals by Cadi Oliveira and a successful Pires
penalty it ensured it progressed to round two in the competition.