Stokeing up the fire

While being  off-line, I seem to have accumulated a fair amount of blog material to catch up with. Following my trip to Regents Park, London on the 9th February, I was soon back again on the 11th to watch Fulham entertain their visitors from the Potteries, none other than Stoke City.

Although a glorious day of sunshine it was extremely cold, but unlike my previous trip to the Cottage there was plenty to cheer about and keep warm in what was probably the teams best performance I'd seen all year.

Good to be back in the Hammersmith End as the lads warm up before the match  (c Rotton Yarns)

It took just 16 minutes for the Whites to take a well deserved lead through a début goal from their new Russian signing Pavel Pogrebnyak. Twelve minutes later, the score doubled when 'that man Dempsey' rattled a shot against the bar which rebounded into the net off the Stoke goalkeeper Thomas Sorenson to qualify it as an own goal.

The Stoke boot boys were clearly rattled by the two goal scorers and responded in a way only they know how with a stream of cynical tackles on the two. This led to a couple of bookings in quick succession for fouls on Dempsey, while after 15 minutes into the second half, Pogrebnyak had to eventually leave the field carrying the injury he sustained in the first half from a wicked tackle.

Fulhams' second half performance did begin to wane and they allowed Stoke back into the game after a corner from which Ryan Shawcross’ flicked header at the near post over Mark Schwarzer and into the back of the net. There was a couple of close moments when Dempsey might have done better and put the ball away, but for the quick reactions of Sorenson to deny him. In the first, he broke through the off-side trap only to have Sorneson read the situation to run out and smother the ball. In the second effort, which was literally the last kick of the game in injury time, Dempsey rounded the goalkeeper but the angle had been made acute enough to see the ball clip the foot of the post.  

All in all a good performance by the team and the day finished off nicely with my football travelling friends and a nice Indian meal at the Naweb Lounge in St Neots.