THE beautiful game can also be a cruel one, and Paul Fairclough‘s tenth anniversary match in charge of England’s Non-League side showed both.
The visitors, with three players in their starting line-up boasting full international caps, not to mention Champions League experience with Galatasaray, popped the ball about Dartford‘s Princes Park pitch immaculately at times.
But Fairclough’s troops tracked them stride for stride until Aydin Yilmaz, one of the seniors now able to call Didier Drogba a club-mate back home in Istanbul, struck an 87th-minute winner.
Fairclough told The NLP: “To compete against players who earn their living in the Turkish Super Lig is an amazing achievement. If it was a boxing match we’d have won a points decision.
“The mobility of their players was fantastic, and it shows you how we are light years behind in this countr y. But our lads coped with that because we’d told them what to expect.
“Eddie Oshodi was very profound afterwards because he said ‘I was really out of my comfort zone with some of the things that you asked me to do, but I’ve really enjoyed doing it’.
“We asked all four defenders to go tight and track their forwards all the way into midfield when they drifted off them. It was alien for our boys, but it was part of the plan and they responded to it.
“That’s what you’ve got to do the higher you go. Every player on that pitch learned so much about themselves, a different style of football and how much they are able to achieve.
“I’m very proud, but I’m also ver y disappointed because we’ve lost the game and we’re out of the tournament, which is really sad because we didn’t deserve to go out in that way.
“We had a strategy and a plan for extra-time, and we’d rehearsed penalties. It was cruel, but there you go. That’s football sometimes.”
Six of Tuesday’s 16-man squad are eligible for the 2013-15 ICT campaign and after a decade at the helm, Fairclough says he has “the bit between [his] teeth” to carr y on.
“I am excited because there is a new generation coming through and that’s been evident in the FA Cup in recent weeks,” said the man who turned 63 last month.
“The Conference is showing how strong it is. It’s up to me and my scouts to go and find the lads who are good enough to compete in this next competition together with the core from this group.”
