OVER THE MOON
Logica 1-7 Shoots and Leaves
09 September 2007

One half of North London was celebrating on the opening day of the 1925-26 season, but it wasn't the Gunners. Spurs won the North London derby 1-0, despite the Arsenal debut of a young 34 year old called Charlie Buchan, and the Highbury side went on to lose five of their first seven fixtures that season, culminating in a 7-0 thrashing by Newcastle.

On an icy Saturday afternoon just one week before Christmas 1959, Liverpool were humbled 4-0 by mighty Cardiff City in front of a packed, but somewhat underwhelmed, Anfield crowd. A young forward called Roger Hunt failed to trouble the scorers.

A little over three years later, England crashed out of the European Nations Cup (as the European Championships were then called) to a rampant French side rattling home five goals at the Parc des Princes. Despite an innovative ploy to play as many players called Bobby as possible, England could only muster two late consolation goals. Bobby Charlton did not score either of them, whilst Bobby Moore, earning his ninth cap, looked somewhat less than majestic as the French seemingly scored at will.

As the shadow of the Lee Valley Ice Skating Rink lengthened across a rough hewn field on a balmy early summer evening in 1985, the Logica players trooped towards the bus-stop disconsolately. They had just lost their opening Summer Computer League match 3-1 to an unconvincing Sinclair ZX81 Manufacturers XI, and their new and highly touted young striker Keith Sidaway had seemed more interested in his lady-friend on the sidelines than the opponent's goal.

The following year, some three days after Bonfire Night, Manchester United's titlechallenge had once again gone up in smoke after they lost 2-0 at the Manor Ground to Oxford United. Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside all missed the match due to "illness".

This seemingly incongruous set of results dotted through the history of Association Football all share a momentous commonality. Each represented an unpromising defeat for a manager in charge of his first match for the club. A manager, though, who would go on to blaze a trail of glory with that same club for many years to come, and by means of some visionary innovations to the way the game was played.

After that Newcastle drubbing, Herbert Chapman, in collusion with Buchan, devised the revolutionary WM formation to combat the recent change in the offside law. A hat-trick of Championships would follow along with a sackful of FA Cups, although Chapman would not live to see the third title, and Buchan's only reward was a job producing schoolboy football annuals.

Bill Shankly would go on to found a footballing dynasty still unsurpassed in terms of domestic and European silverware, whilst 'Sir' Roger Hunt would bag himself a World Cup winners medal three years later. Moore and Charlton would join him on English football's most famous day, a far cry from that dismal defeat in Paris which was Sir Alf Ramsey's first game as England Supremo.

And those two matches in the mid-1980's were the first opportunities for two legendary Scottish managers to survey the new talent at their disposal. Suffice to say that neither Malcolm Dick nor Alex Ferguson were overly impressed with what they saw, and both moved quickly and ruthlessly to bring in new and exciting personnel that would soon be winning League and Cup doubles and terrifying all corners of Europe. Sidaway, however, has not as yet claimed his own World Cup winners medal.

It is hoped that the names of Severiano Preston and Mad Dog Sapwell will one day join these luminaries in the Great Football History Book chapter entitled 'Visionary Gaffers'. They can, at the very least, take some crumbs of comfort from the fact that even such legends of the dug-out weren't all-conquering from Day One.

There were signs both on and off the field that the dynamic duo have the requisite capacity for innovation. The team had footballs to warm up with! Subs were collected before the game! A fifteenth player was invited to turn up just on the off-chance that someone else might not! A summer of tactical training had apparently reaped dividends as Logica produced a convincing first half display of aggressive defending and free-flowing attacking football! And, more controversially, two old codgers were hauled off before the hour-mark to be replaced by younger legs!

But not every one wants to move on, of course. One man in particular appeared quite keen to continue his well-practised pre-match routine. At approximately 10:59pm on Saturday evening, the new Supremi received a text from a familiar Battersea ale house asking whether one S. Groom was in the following day's starting line-up. A veiled response, hinting that he just might be, was met with a tearful reply bemoaning the consequent loss of at least five hours clubbing time. But despite these apparently good intentions, the ex-Supremo was nowhere to be seen on Sunday morning, and incommunicado to boot. The Supreme plan to bring along a spare was immediately shown for all its visionary worth, and just minutes before kick-off, Fazel (for it was he) was ordered to go and get changed.

Shoots and Leaves certainly provided a stern test for the new Logica. Strong, pacey and very tall for the most part, it was immediately clear to see why they had run away with the Division Five title last season, scoring 93 goals and dropping just two points. But Logica were up to the task, and in an impressive first half display, they began to put into practice some of the disciplines they had been rehearsing all summer.

It was the late-replacement Fazel who led the way, once again looking like he had played at centre half all his life. His aggression and reading of the game were to the fore as he regularly got to the ball before the man he was marking, and in effective tandem with Trovato, ensured that the visitors were restricted to just a few long-range efforts in the first half, despite having the slight edge in the possession stakes.

The midfield diamond was a sparkling and pointed quartet, fluid enough to transform itself into a square, rectangle, rhomboid, or line as the occasion demanded. Gautam and Buck were everywhere, closing down and prompting attacks in equal measure, and, as the half wore on, the two wide-men Chetty and Reevaldo began to work some attacking space and pose an increasing threat. Logica's passing going forward was far more swift and incisive as the summer's back-to-basics re-training programme with its heavy emphasis on a possession-based approach appeared to be paying dividends.

The home side had already constructed a number of sweeping attacking moves before they finally took the lead. Another well-constructed set of passes appeared to have broken down, but Buck was quick to pounce on a loose ball, pushing it past the last defender only to be unceremoniously upended by a late and desperate lunge. A more clear-cut penalty you are unlikely to see, and in his very first competitive game since the World Cup, Abbott immediately had the chance to get back on the spot-kick bicycle following his shocking semi-final shoot-out miss. If he was nervous, it didn't show, and he calmly sent the keeper the wrong way, slotting home to give Logica the lead [1-0].

It could so easily have been doubled before half time. Another neat four-man interchange culminated with Abbott back-heeling the ball into the marauding Buck's path. Taking the ball in his stride, the midfielder executed a near perfect compromise between shot and chip that rose and dipped late. The Shoots keeper got the faintest of finger-tips to the ball to deflect it onto the face of the bar. Melville, revelling in his new striking role, was quickest to the rebound and hit the bouncing ball goalwards like a rocket only to see it cannon back off a shell-shocked goalie's face and the chance was gone.

Mad Dog would later admit to coming off at half time feeling very excited, and thinking "this is going to be a great season for Logica". His optimism seemed well-placed at that juncture on the basis of an excellent first half display in which both the team's defence and offence were a marked improvement on last season. But the Football Gods are apt to devour such foolhardy chicken-counting, and had a field day in the second half.

Within minutes of the restart a mis-hit Shoots corner had bumbled through a statuesque Logica defence to be poked home at the back stick with unrestrained relief [1-1]. Not long after, a pull-back from the right again evaded defensive boots and was swept home from 15 yards [1-2]. When an exact replica of the first goal gave Shoots a 3-1 advantage with less than 15 minutes of the second half gone, the tables had been dramatically turned. Home heads dropped, and limbs visibly tired in this first outing of the season.

Suddenly the passing principles of the first half were forgotten as a fatigued panic took hold, and the ball was simply lumped clear. A somewhat ageist substitution policy endeavoured to arrest the decline ("it was still 1-1 when I went off," chirped Reevaldo later) but to no avail. Without the ball, Logica could do little but defend, and Shoots showed themselves ruthless finishers given the chance and helped themselves to four more goals in the remaining half an hour. Quite bizarrely a half-time lead had been turned into a 1-7 deficit by the end.

The Supreme honeymoon was over: it was a ruthless lesson for the new gaffers, but one which they seemed keen to learn from. A packed post-match debrief in the Raynes Park Tavern (another welcome innovation) noted a lack of general match fitness along with the need to remember what we did so well in the first half. But, after careful consideration, it was unanimously agreed that the blame should be laid squarely at the bedroom door of the slumbering Groom. These boys might just yet join Chapman, Shankly, Ramsey and Dick in the pantheon of all-time gaffering greats.