Match Report – Saturday 11th October – Gents 1s

Uddingston 4 – Dundee Wanderers 1

This was the game in which all the hard work of the past few months finally started to bear fruit.

Dundee Wanderers have beaten Uddingston twice in the last two games they have played in the men’s premier league, and probably arrived at the Uddingston Cricket and Sport Club on Saturday afternoon quietly confident of three points. They left downcast and despondent, having been comprehensively outplayed. Dundee were certainly up for the challenge and were the first to launch a serious attack on goal with a long solo run down the right wing, then up the baseline before finally being staunched on the corner of the Uddy goal.

But it was Uddy whose engine soon started to hum like a souped-up Corvette. The passing was slick and fast. The errors so common in previous games had mostly disappeared.

At the back, skipper Jedd Campbell had an imperious game. Solid as a rock in defence with deftly timed tackles, he repeatedly stripped Dundee attackers of the ball, dug Uddy out of trouble on the baseline, intercepted numerous dangerous-looking passes and launched aggressive counterattacks.

Campbell’s stick work can be of the highest quality, befuddling even the most experienced Premier League players. It is little wonder he has been called up into the Scottish national squad, as he is surely one of the best centre-backs in the country.

Campbell was more than ably supported by Sean Baker, Stephen MacKenzie and Callum Darroch, all of whom kept things tidy and calm at the back while also pushing Uddy forwards with some strong linking balls, aerials and sideline interchanges. After barely seven minutes of the first quarter, with Uddy again pressing, Ben Young picked up the ball in the Wanderers’ D, skipped along the baseline with some deft skills and fired the ball into the net from a tight angle for 1-0. Young had his strongest game of the season and was a constant threat.

New Aussie signing Matt Young also did very well in his debut, not managing to get on the score sheet but working hard in and around the D to create opportunities, win penalty corners and get away a number of shots on target. He will soon be notching up the goals.

Andrew Docherty put in one of the surprise performances of the day and deservedly won man of the match. He had a fine game, buzzing with energy throughout and hungrily picking up balls in the midfield and around the edges and distributing thoughtfully and well.

Two minutes before the end of the first quarter, Uddy were awarded their first penalty corner of the match. Anup Valmiki’s injections are so fast and accurate, they seem to give the Uddy castles all the time in the word to trap the ball and sling in shots.

This first corner went like clockwork: rapid Valmiki injection, perfect trap and a hard, low shot from Angus Sinclair onto the backboard for 2-0.

Slightly shell-shocked, Dundee came back fighting in the second quarter and came close on one or two occasions to getting a goal back. But robust Uddy defending saw off the threat, including a couple of threatening Dundee penalty corners ably rebuffed. The first half finished with a pleasing 2-0 scoreline.

Just two minutes into the second half, after several dangerous passes from Angus Sinclair had put Dundee under pressure, a clumsy tackle in the D led to an Uddy penalty stroke.

Up stepped Finn Haliday, Uddy’s master marksman from the p spot. There was never any doubt. His powerful high flick left the Dundee keeper with no chance, 3-0. Suddenly this was becoming a rather enjoyable afternoon in the Glasgow gloom: It wasn’t raining, it was a comfortable 15 degrees and Uddy were 3-0 up.

Before long it was 4-0. A penalty corner six minutes into the third quarter saw the perfect execution of one of Uddy’s new showpiece routines: Sinclair fakes a drag flick and swirls the ball left into a neat lay off to a waiting Campbell, who fires the ball past the stranded keeper. Uddy have scored a couple of times with this little routine this season, including against champions Western in the first game, and it is a glorious thing to behold when it works.

To their credit, Dundee kept fighting even at 4-0 down. Perhaps they hadn’t quite processed that they were so far behind.

Uddy’s players continued to shine with Angus Millar, Joe Russell and the always impressive Valmiki having strong games in this excellent Uddy performance. With only a few minutes to go, Dundee became oddly desperate, surging forward like it was 1-1 with points on the line.

They earned a penalty corner right at the end of the game and even though the initial drag flick was run down by the Uddy defence, the ball ricocheted inconveniently into space near the P spot and a grateful Dundee striker flicked the ball from close range into the Uddy net for 4-1.

At the final whistle, the Dundee players looked crestfallen, like they had their lunch money taken by the school bully.

But this was a performance to treasure from an Uddy team who are getting more cohesive and playing better each time they run out. That’s four games unbeaten in the league now and a win next week could see Uddy up to fourth in the league and putting their hand up for a run at European contention.

In the way stand the not inconsiderable threat of Grange next week and then Watsonians and Edinburgh Uni to follow. But after this weekend’s showing, the Uddy faithful are starting to believe the sky is the limit for this team.

– Adrian Hadland

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