... or when you can’t use enough words!
As anyone with half a brain is probably aware, newspapers tend to focus on the bigger games, the bigger clubs and the largest potential readership. All of which makes sense.
So when there is a fairly full midweek fixture list and limited space available, the order for copy from the sports desk can be fairly small. You would think that the fewer words required, the easier the job. Yeah, you’d think.
Before last night’s game I was asked for a mere one hundred words. Not a great deal, but once you throw six goals into the mix, it becomes a little tougher to tell the full story.
After Stuart Beavon’s opener last night I had a comfortable piece arranged in my head focusing on the prolific Wycombe hit man - and maybe a little something about Orient keeper Paul Rachuka’s debut following a loan move from Leeds earlier that day.
Paul Hayes second didn’t trouble me too much either. I could just tag on something about his third goal in three games since arriving from Charlton and then add something about the superb threaded pass by fellow loanee Craig Eastmond – an impressive young midfielder from Arsenal.
The star of the show though was Matt Bloomfield. He added a third with a little drop of the shoulder in the 33rd minute that left three defenders for dead before he slotted home his first goal of the season.
Great goal by him, great for the home support, but not too good for me – there was still about an hour to go.
Six minutes later Bloomfield – who I have a lot of time for on a personal level – twisted the knife by setting up Ben Strevens for the fourth.
As Orient left the pitch to a chorus of boos and cries of “we want our money back” from the travelling support, I was preparing myself for worse to come (as were most of the visiting back room staff I suspect).
Immediately after the break – and presumably with manager Russell Slade’s words of comfort ringing in their ears – the Os started with a bang ... and another bloody goal to write about.
Skipper Matt Spring buried a scorcher that left keeper Nikki Bull (who made several decent stops during the game that were all worth writing about) with no chance.
In the 74th minute Marc Laird nodded in a long ball from Terrell Forbes as the confidence seemed to ebb from the home side.
It’s worth mentioning the funniest incident of the night at this point and with due respect to the travelling fans it wasn’t the chant of “we’re going to win 5-4” following Spring’s goal.
Seconds before Laird scored, midfielder Dean Cox was flattened about 20 yards from the Wycombe goal. He was furious with referee David Philips who had played advantage. As soon as the ball hit the back of the net, Philips caught Cox’s eye and cupped his hand to his ear. The midfielder patted official on the back as he jogged to the half way line for the resumption.
As the Chairboys desperately clung on to their lead, the bookings started mounting up and I had visions of a red card or two needing to be described as well.
Veteran midfielder Gareth Ainsworth was sent on by manager Gary Waddock in the 79th minute – presumably to use his experience to settle to team down – and was promptly scythed down by central defender Ben Chorley who was shown a yellow card.
It looked an awful challenge, but it was also a daft one with ten minutes (plus five minutes injury time as it turned out) to go.
I’m not for one minute saying Ainsworth did this, but if I had been around the block as often as him, I would have been lying on the turf thinking “well that’s worth more than the 30 seconds the ref is going to add on” and stayed where I was to run a little extra time down. As I say though, that’s what I would have done!
Having sent off the report you saw on my blog earlier today, I called the office to ensure they had received it and was greeted with “you could have added a more description”. The guy at the office was laughing as he said it ... and I hung up with as much joviality as I could muster!
So there you have it, an account of last night’s game at Adams Park – in 757 words.
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