Larceny!

We deserved reward out of this game to the same extent that Mr Ian Duncan Smith deserves to build on his prodigious and manifest successes of the last couple of years by sweeping to victory in the next Election. No! I’ll go further! We deserved reward out of this game to the same extent that Mr Tony Blair deserves to build on his prodigious and manifest successes of the last couple of years by sweeping to victory in the next Election. Perhaps blowing so very hot in so many games over a short period of time has caused an electrical malfunction in our team, but this was our poorest display of the season by a thumpingly large margin and Torquay should have been home and dry (by a method of their choosing) long before Stuart Elliott pinched a late equaliser.

So we should’ve got cuffed, but we nicked a point … another Promotion indicator cheerfully ticked off.

Mr Taylor retained our usual 4-4-2 shape (and why ever not?), but brought Thelwell back in place of the benched Hinds. So we began:

Musslewhite
Thelwell Whittle Delaney Dawson
Price Green Ashbee Elliott
Burgess Alsop

And a bright Devon afternoon brought a bright Tiger opening, as Burgess romped through a home defence pleasingly unwilling to tackle before shooting over the bar.

False omen. It was Torquay that quickly took a stranglehold on the game. And they scored early.

A powerful break, a right-foot cross shot from Graham, and the ball nestles in the top corner of the net with the Muss completely powerless. 1-0, a terrific strike, and there looks to be more damage to come. A long through ball sees Justin bested by Graham, the Muss saves a firmly-struck shot … Graham, sporting a pair of pale coloured boots that only the very talented dare flaunt, is thwarted by a desperate combination of Thelwell and Delaney … then Delaney slips horribly and is able to clamber to his feet to clear the ball just a split-second before Graham pounces.

The obvious flaw in our chosen 4-4-2, which features two genuine wide men, is that it leaves us short in central midfield. There’s always a risk that Ashbee and Green (or, when he plays, Keates) will find themselves outnumbered and that the opposition will dominate possession. Obvious, yet only Oxford so far this season could come close to claiming they took advantage, because the vigour of our attacking play down both flanks is usually sufficient to prevent opponents even thinking about taking the game to us. And, at bottom, we’ve just got better players than everyone else in this grisly Division. But yesterday at Plainmoor, with Elliott quiet down the left and Price utterly silent down the right, and several other Tigers in distinctly subdued hue, the fluid and neat-passing Torquay midfield was dominating the game.

None of which explains nor excuses a most peculiar outburst from Mr Taylor. He was standing at the right-hand end of the away dug-out, as viewed from the wooden stand behind him – that is, t’other end from Dolan’s timeless sticker moment. A large-voiced City fan (not me!) howled something to him about not changing a winning team. I couldn’t say whether the rebuke was intended as a witty comparison between the side struggling against the Torqs and the stiffs’ demolition of Darlo last Tuesday, or whether it was instead a rather lame accusation that omitting Hinds in favour of Thelwell was the reason for our toils. One for an experienced manager (England, you know!) to ignore? Not so. PT wheeled round, berated his interrogator, and signed off a stream of angry abuse with a loud snarling “PRAT!!”.

Crikey, Peter, wait til we’ve really got something to moan about, you won’t like us much then. Seriously, this was very odd. Mr Taylor is hardly a man under pressure just now, is he? He seems to have a very thin skin, and came out of this little encounter looking like nothing other than a prat. What is it with City managers at Plainmoor?

Things were improving none on the pitch. Ashbee and Elliott combined to provide Alsopp with a shooting opportunity which deserved better than a tame stab limping away beyond the far post, but then it was back up the other end, as Torquay continued to force the pace towards the Muss defending the goal in front of the portion of the Tigers support that had opted for the terraces. We foolishly pulled all eleven back to defend a free-kick awarded down near the corner flag, so that a partial clearance landed the ball at the feet of Torq 25 yards out and with plenty of time to tee up his shot. The Muss saved safely by his right-hand post. Then a ball flew across the face of our goal, with no home attacker on hand to apply a finishing touch. We are getting hammered. We are defending too deep, we have no impact in midfield and no compensating flair down the flanks. Delaney concedes a corner which is bundled against the post and hastily shovelled away for another corner. Although we have a sight on goal in the time added – Price and Green set up Allsop, but his shot is saved by Dearden in the Torquay goal – half-time is reached with no argument at all about the home side’s superiority.

It’s not an argument with which we seemed inclined to engage after the break either. Our best bet lay with the growing band of pigeons that were feeding voraciously in the penalty area patrolled by ex-Tiger Dearden. Now, if we could just land a long pass in amongst the aviary then who knows what kind of deflection might help us on our way? Time was, we’d’ve had a couple of pigeon-fanciers in our team, but not nowadays, these fancy dans with their flash cars and their designer clothes, they just don’t know how to take advantage of local flora and fauna, now I remember Bill Bradbury at Accrington in the late 1950s, quick one-two with a passing whippet, ball was in the back of the net before the keeper had time to shout “down, boy”.

Torquay were now playing with a shade less conviction than their passing best had revealed before the break, but still they seemed alarmingly capable of carving out chances against our sagging defence. I wonder if Thelwell was fully fit. He never looked comfortable. Kuffour, attacking down their left, our right, sliced badly wide and then, shortly afterwards forced the Muss into an excellent stop, but on both occasions Thelwell looked to have misjudged his position.

Price, a woefully impact-free afternoon under his belt, was pulled off in favour of France, and we had a couple more glimpses of a chance: a Green free-kick, easily held by Dearden, and an Australian shot, also a comfortable pouch for the home keeper. But up the other end Graham was presented with a glorious opportunity to kill the game as the ball was slipped into him in space near the penalty area. He flicked through the pages of his textbook on how NOT to take chances (my own personal copy is worryingly well-thumbed, I’ll confess) leaned back as far as he could, took his eye right off the ball, began to celebrate the goal before he’d even made contact with the ball …. and whooosshhed his effort high, wide and hilarious. Graham can really play, as he proved a minute or so later when a divine piece of skill set up the sub Wills for a shot that was dobbed wastefully wide, but this lazy moment was to condemn his side to a draw instead of the win they unarguably deserved.

Not that we looked like pinching a point at the time. Forrester and Holt came on for Allsop and Green, and their first duty was to watch admiringly as Graham skipped cleanly clear of Delaney before shooting wide. But shortly afterwards … a long ball, Elliott makes a nuisance of himself among the home defence, and the ball drops loose to Forrester who plants a quite superb first-time pass straight into Elliott’s feet, just beyond the covering defence … the Ulsterman takes it on and smashes a vicious shot across Dearden into the top corner for a brutally effective finish.

1-1, madness. Relief, delight.