St Stephen FC v Torpoint Athletic Thirds
THIS BLOG FINDS ME IN A SOMEWHAT PHILOSOPHICAL FRAME OF MIND. It’s the kind of humour that can take you when you have spent a lovely sunny (well, mostly) spring afternoon on the glorious North Cornwall coast (well, in distant sight of the sea anyway), watching another knockout instalment of the beautiful game.
It can make your mind wander and ponder some of the most important questions in life. If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? (Yes, obviously). If a man talks and his wife doesn’t hear what he said, is he still wrong? (Obviously, in this progressive age of equality, feel free to substitute in the words ‘woman’, ‘husband’ and ‘partner’ as applicable. I don’t want to upset anyone). And do we have free will or did some form of sporting predetermination lead us all to St Agnes at this particular point and time in human history?
And here is the big one. Does winning feel sweeter after suffering some painful losses or is that winning feeling just as fantastic whenever you experience the buzz of it? That was what was really bothering me at Enys Parc on Sunday.
You see, St Stephen FC were in the final of the Bond Timber Cornwall Junior Cup for the third year running, but they had lost on the previous two occasions. How would they feel if they suffered an unwanted “threepeat”? Conversely, if they won, would their joy be greater than any other side that has won this sought-after trophy in the past 118 years or so?
Torpoint Athletic Thirds hadn’t won the trophy since the 2010-11 season. If they triumphed again would their delight be greater because they hadn’t tasted that feeling for a few years? And would defeat be less hard for them to take than it would be for St Stephen?
These were the sort of questions running through my mind as I rocked up at Sunday’s game. Most people worry about 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or the state of the pitch (in very good nick, actually) or any of a hundred or more footballing questions, but I was thinking philosophically. I decided that, as it was a cup final, the emotions of victory and defeat would be heightened for both sides. There were medals and silverware on offer, after all, the tangible signs of soccer success.
But I was worried about St Stephen.
On the same weekend as this game was played, Tottenham Hotspur suffered an eighth consecutive FA Cup semi-final defeat. That’s an astonishing and unhappy record and you can’t tell me that one defeat doesn’t have an effect on another. The weight of history can grind you down.
In the American version of football called, er, American football, the Buffalo Bills will be forever famous for losing four Superbowls in a row between 1990 and 1993. The frustration of being good enough to reach the big showpiece four times in a row, and then four times in a row being not quite good enough to win it, must carve a giant canyon in the sporting soul of any team or player or supporter. It has to be worse than not reaching the final in the first place.
So this was the mental challenge facing St Stephen and I feared for them.
That is not to say that my cup football blogging neutrality was compromised in any way, though. Torpoint were thoroughly deserving of their place in the final, having overcome Penwith Exiles in the semis. I had seen the Exiles earlier in the tournament and was impressed. I thought they were favourites to win the cup so for the men from The Mill to beat them was mighty impressive.
The Point’s first team might be bumping around in the bottom half of the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Premier Division but they had pulled off one of the big shocks of the Cornish cup football season, beating holders Bodmin Town 3-2 in the quarter-finals of the Cornwall Senior Cup having trailed 2-0.
Torpoint’s second team are also right in the hunt for silverware as the battle for the Mortgage Advice Bureau East Cornwall Premier League title goes down to the wire and they have also reached the semi-finals of the Fred Binks Premier Division Cup. The Thirds had a lot to live up to in an exciting season for the whole club.
And, at a beautifully presented Enys Parc, which was a real credit to the work of St Agnes FC, it looked as if Torpoint had got off to the flyingest of flying starts. As the Saints seemed to still be taking in the big game atmosphere all around them (there was a proper match announcer, stewards to help with the parking, a super matchday programme and ball boys in full Aggies’ kit, as well as a sizable crowd) the yellow-shirted Athletic had the ball in the net in less than 60 seconds.
However, their joy was short-lived as the flag of a sharp-eyed linesman was raised to indicate an offside in the build-up. ‘Goal’ ruled out and a let-off for St Stephen.
Twenty minutes later, the grey-clad St Stephen were denied a strike of their own by the lino on the other side of the pitch, a splendid far-post header also being ruled out for offside.
So, 0-0 but that felt like the turning point of the match. Up until then, Torpoint had been the better team and the smart money would have been on St Stephen suffering a triple tragedy of cup final dismay. But that effort, although disallowed, seemed to make them believe that they could make their mark on the game and they gradually took control. As they pulled together more and more, Torpoint’s players started to lose their cohesion, started to bicker and criticise. They could feel the power shift.
On 28 minutes, St Stephen’s growing confidence was rewarded with the opening goal. A free-kick on halfway was launched forward, the ball was knocked back across the box and tapped in at the far post. It was a decent goal and boosted their confidence as much as it drained away that of the deflated Point players. They demanded a reaction from themselves, but it never really came.
Five minutes before the break, St Stephen made it 2-0 with a neat finish after a corner wasn’t cleared. Their heartbreak of the previous two seasons was beginning to look as if it would be swept away.
In the second half they turned in what could best be described as a “professional” performance. Torpoint never gave up, committing more and more resources into attack but never really getting in a telling jab at the well-organised St Stephen defence. It was tense and absorbing but the drama of a comeback never materialised. In fact, Saints looked the more likely to score and they almost did on 70 minutes when a stinging volley thumped against the crossbar. It would have been a stunning goal, worthy of winning any cup final, but St Stephen didn’t need it as they were well on the way to winning this one.
At the final whistle, fears of a threepeat defeat had been replaced by the exultation of cup glory and the satisfaction of a job well done.
There was a festival atmosphere in the sunshine as Cornwall FA banners were set up and the medals and trophy were brought out to be presented, the only cloud on the sunny scene being the gloom of the Torpoint contingent. But they had no need to be hard on themselves – it had been an exciting run to the final and, on the day, they were simply beaten by the better side.
For St Stephen, as the cup was handed over and the players roared their delight, there was just a hint of relief in the air, mixed in with the happiness. But were they more joyful than Torpoint would have been if they had won? And was Athletic’s pain in defeat any less sharp than it would have been for Saints?
These are questions that I am still cogitating upon. I will need to go to a few more cup finals before I can come to a definite answer. Never mind, eh?
THE STATISTICS BIT AND MORE PICTURES
St Stephen FC 2 Torpoint Athletic Thirds 0
(Half-time 2-0)
Played at Enys Parc, St Agnes, on Sunday, April 22, 2018
Bond Timber Cornwall Junior Cup Final
Cup matches watched this season: 31
Home wins: 18
Away wins: 6
Draws: 3
Games at neutral venues: 4
Number of competitions watched: 13
Home goals: 73
Away goals: 38
Goals at neutral venues: 17
Total goals: 128
PICTURES EXTRA (lots of them)
CONTACT
If you have any thoughts or comments about this blog, email me at thecupfootballblogger@hotmail.com; find me on Twitter via @cupfootballblog; or find me on Facebook at Peter Harlow (the cup football blogger)
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