Remember, remember the 5th of November, embarrassment, foly and rot as the Cherries fall at the first hurdle in the FA Cup.
So much for the club being able to survive on cup runs this season. Just 4,550 turned up on a grey cold Fireworks night to watch an ever greyer and colder performance from the Cherries as we lose to non-league opposition.
No disrespect but Tamworth were the poorest side to visit Dean Court for a long while. They came with a predictable game plan and that involved simply defending with a solid wall of eight players behind the ball at all times whilst trying to muscle us off the ball when they could. Meanwhile, the Cherries started off in some sort of crazy 4-4-2 formation with Browning on the left and Foley in the centre of midfield. The team was the exact same eleven who after Gowling was stretchered from the field, so heroically tore apart Brentford at Griffin Park last weekend. But what a difference in attitude!
With yet another narrow midfield set by O’Driscoll the Cherries faithful witnessed James O’Connor, Callum Hart and even Neil Young being forced to overstretch themselves all match down the flanks filling in the gaps left by a pair on non-existent wingers. Hayter and Keene were also stretched at the front, also having to deputise on the wings for much of the game. The result? A lack of pace from the Cherries coming forward and a dearth of decent crosses to even threaten Tamworth.
Tamworth, fresh from an overnight stop and training session at Southampton took the first couple of chances in the match. A shot from Edwards hit Callum Hart and went out for a corner. Then Aaron Brown saw a shot deflected over the bar. We looked shaky but to be fair, we always look shaky for the first ten minutes and most around me were confident we could weather the storm and come out fighting. How wrong we all were.
Things did start to turn our way a tad but the chances and shooting was of the cow’s arse, banjo and barn door variety. Surman saw a shot headed away whilst Keene had a weak effort easily cleared by Dave Bampton. Then Foley took a right-sided free kick that sailed over the bar and into the empty Boscombe Beach End.
An easier chance to score from a set piece was passed over by Brian Stock on 25 minutes. Browning had played a nice through ball for Hayter. But James was felled just outside the box in a central position. It was a dangerous place to give away a free kick but Stock slammed the ball into the wall.
Jake Edwards then gave Stewart an easy save, his first real action of the game. But minutes later and Stewart was left picking the ball out of the net after Tamworth took first blood. Edwards, on loan from Exeter turned the Cherries defence after a quick break up the pitch. His shot was fantastically saved by Stewart but Graham Ward was quickest to the rebound and looped the ball home to give the Lambs a shock lead.
Tamworth’s Mark Cooper earned himself the first booking of the game for a late tackle whilst Carl Heggs was also lucky not to find his name in referee Jarnail Singh’s notebook. Meanwhile the Cherries huffed and puffed and looked to be entering the dressing room at half time with a one goal deficit.
But Surman supplied a good cross to Foley who won us another freekick in nearly the identical position as Stock’s last effort – right in front of goal and right on half time. This time, Stock curled the ball beautifully over the wall and into the right hand corner.
To be fair to the team, Tamworth were put under pressure from the off after the break. Keene had a legitimate case for a foul in the box turned down after being pulled over by two defenders. Then Young got in the first shot, after a foray down the right flank. Bevan though saved the powerful effort.
At the other end, Heggs shot straight at Stewart, what would be their only shot at goal in open play during the second half.
Little was happening right for the Cherries though. Lots of nice build up play (easy when the opposition are camped back in their own half) led to hardly any breaks. Tamworth had their backs to the wall and looked to be pulling off a good draw.
My notebook remained empty of incidents (shots, chances or anything interesting) until the 69th minute of the game when Stephen Cooke replaced Keene. By now, I’d given up trying to work out our formation and why when we needed to win this game, we’d taken off a striker for a midfielder. But Cooke did make an impact in the game straight away. James O’Connor did well to rescue a very awkward ball on the flank (he seemed to be getting a lot of these) and passed to Cooke. Cookie took on his man, got past and crossed only for Hayter to miss connecting by an inch.
Surman then caused chaos in the Lambs box with a weak shot claimed by the keeper but hoofed clear after some confusion by a defender. Moments later and Surman had a good shout for pulling turned down as he was manhandled out of the way whilst a cross zipped in. Hayter had a high volley go wide off a ball from Young and then failed to connect with an overhead kick right on the penalty spot. Foley had a shot wide whilst Stock had another freekick curled past the post.
Just as the Cherries fans were thinking ‘were the hell is Tamworth anyway’ and ‘can I get a day off to watch the replay’ things went from bloody awful to embarrassing. Referee Jarnail Singh seemed to ignore two blatant Tamworth handballs in the Cherries box yet then pointed to the spot after Browning had shouldered away the ball. Gareth Stewart saved the spot kick but Kyle Storer smacked in the rebound to send the Lambs’ fans into ecstasy over in the East Stand.
With just eight minutes left O’Driscoll threw everything at the match, bringing off Hart for Dani Rodrigues and putting Coutts on for Browning. Tamworth came under intense pressure but it seems that no one in rednblack wanted to shoot. Cooper made the best effort of the match with a great cross but somehow buy Hayter and Rodrigues missed the ball. Then Hayter headed into the side netting off a freekick. With Stewart now playing as a sweeper and everyone up front, Rodrigues saw the final chance go wide, powerfully heading a Cooke cross past the post.
Player Ratings
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Ref watch
Warren Cummings gave the ref an absolute ear bashing in the tunnel at the end of the game and Singh had to have a steward escort to his car an hour after the match had finished. However despite the dodgy penalty, it wasn’t Singh’s fault that we lost. It was our awful awful approach to the match.
In a nutshell
Manager Rating
Considering the importance of a) making sure we did not have to play a replay because of the pressures that would bring on our squad and b) the financial implications of losing in the 1st round, we have to say that the tactics were very poor today.
Opponent Rating
Marc Cooper did his homework and stopped us playing (all too easily for my liking).
Positives
Cooper’s performance, that’s about all I can think of as a positive from this game.
Negatives
Forget the embarrassment of losing to a piss-poor team. The financial reality, rightly or wrongly (and I happen to believe the latter) is that we rely on cup runs to survive. Saturday was another nail in our coffin.
In a nutshell
A total damp squib.
