21/4/2008

Sport

Boro take the title after Hark's magic moment

Leigh Rumbold and Paul Harkness celebrate Boro's title triumph

by Chris Harris

A POINT was all that was required to win the championship and promotion, and on a rain swept and nerve-wracking Saturday afternoon at Cherrywood Road, Farnborough secured the draw they needed to take the first step on their road to recovery.

Just over 11 months after Farnborough Town slumped out of business, and eight months after the new club, Farnborough Football Club, played its first game, Andy Clement’s men clinched the BGB Southern 1 South & West title to begin their climb back up the non-league ladder.

In a fairytale moment, Paul Harkness, for so long a stalwart of the old club, came off the bench to score the equalising goal that sealed the title. His side were forced to hang on for an agonising 25 minutes, before the final whistle blew to spark wild, champagne-filled celebrations among the players and a pitch invasion from the delirious fans.

The ‘re-birth’ has been an action packed, rollercoaster ride for Boro and their followers: from the highs of the thumping 6-1 win over Abingdon United and the Boxing Day massacre of local rivals Fleet Town, to the lows of the 3-0 defeat in the reverse fixture at Calthorpe Park, and the long and depressing mid-week journey home from Taunton after a dismal display.

But for entertainment value, it could hardly have been better. Boro’s emphasis certainly hasn’t been on defence, seen clearly from the first day of the campaign, letting in three goals at Godalming Town after leading 3-0 at half time.

But the end justifies the means, and scoring 116 goals with two games still to play is testament to Boro’s attacking, exciting and sometimes cavalier approach to the game.

Whether it be a trademark Rob Saunders freekick, or an electric burst down the wing from Darren Wheeler, Boro have been fantastic to watch this season and are richly deserving league champions.

Now, with the right set-up behind the scenes, they can surely build after taking the first step to a return to the Conference, where they feel the club belongs.

In contrast to much of the season, the game itself was more tense, tight and nervy than any seen at Cherrywood Road this year. The magnitude of what they were on the verge of achieving perhaps affected some of the Boro players. The visitors Windsor & Eton also struggled to find their form, desperate for a win to keep their slim play-off hopes alive.

But the only thing that really mattered was that Boro picked up the point they needed, and Boro’s victorious manager was clearly delighted.

“It’s absolutely fantastic,” Clement said. “We deserved it and won it well, even if we didn’t play that well today. But it was always going to be tough with Windsor needing a win, so I’m delighted.

“We started badly, but I thought that as bad as we played we still created some good chances, as we always do. We changed the system in the second half, things went better, and we got the goal we needed.

“At the outset we just wanted to put the club on an even keel and get that stability. But we started the season well and kept the performances going, and the expectations soared.

“Once you set those sorts of standards it is hard to drop them, and it is a fantastic achievement in our first season. The infrastructure is there now, on and off the field, and things are looking good.”

At points during the season Clement has come under fire from sections of the Boro support, but the boss has always shrugged off the criticism. Winning the title in his and the club’s first campaign has certainly justified his decisions, but Clement said it was just part of managing a big club like Boro.

“You would be hard pushed to find any manager that doesn’t get some sections of the fans criticising him,” he said. “That’s what football is all about, and I’m sure even Alex Ferguson gets a bit of stick from his supporters.

“Hopefully, winning it today has proved to them that I must have made more right decisions than wrong ones.”

Clement made just one change to the side that beat Gosport Borough last week, with Rob Marshall replacing the unavailable Dave Woozley at the back. Windsor’s hopes were dented even before kick off, with top scorer Matthew Seedel suspended.

The game hardly got going in the first 20 minutes, with the best chance falling to Wheeler who didn’t connect well enough with his tame shot.

The Royalists did carry a threat on the break, but Boro began to get on top of the game and Michael Bartley should have done better than slicing wide on the half hour mark when Marcus Richardson nodded the ball down to him from Wheeler’s cross.

Moments later Boro came closer still, when Richardson chipped into the area and Saunders clipped his effort over Windsor keeper Seb Brown, only to be denied by the crossbar.

As Windsor’s threat appeared to subside, they suddenly stunned Boro with an incisive breakaway. Michael Chennels, who has 19 league goals to his name, picked up the ball on the right and cut inside past Luke Evans. His low drive beat Lyall Beazley but rattled the post and came back into play. Joe Chandiram was quickest to react and stabbed the loose ball home.

After the break, Boro continued to enjoy more possession, but did little with it apart from Richardson’s mis-cued header.

It needed something special, and on 60 minutes Clement decided to bring on Harkness for the ineffectual Bartley. It has been a torrid season for Harkness, who spent two months in and out of hospital back at the start of the year before being diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease.

After battling back to fitness the Boro striker, who played 146 games in five seasons at Farnborough Town, looked sharp from the moment he came on, and he took just seven minutes to write the kind of ‘Roy of the Rovers’ script the supporters craved.

Evans crashed a hopeful ball into the box and as Richardson knocked it down, Harkness showed all his experience to calmly slot home the equaliser and send the Prospect Road End into raptures.

After the game, an overjoyed Harkness could barely keep the smile from his face.

He said: “It was a great feeling out there today. I’m so pleased that we have got over that last hurdle, but it’s fantastic for me personally to score the goal that gets us the point we need to win it.

“After the season I have had, when I was lying in a hospital bed, I never thought this could happen for me.

“It’s brilliant for the club and for everyone involved. From the moment I rejoined back in September it was clear that we wanted to get out of this league and now we have done it, no-one can take it away from us.”

For ten minutes Boro looked to grab a second, with Harkness going close again, but as the final whistle drew ever nearer, tension crept into their play, and it became a case of anywhere will do as they simply lumped the ball clear.

As the game moved into a painful five minutes of injury time Windsor came close to nicking a winner. First, Chennels raced through but Evans did enough to put the striker off. Then the ball dropped to Jake Parsons on the edge of the area and Marshall heroically threw himself in front of it to block the substitute’s shot.

But it was Boro’s day, and when the referee eventually blew the whistle, Cherrywood Road erupted.

Boro: Beazley, Marshall, Oliver, Doyle (Ciardini), Evans, Rumbold (Wise), Saunders, Barima, Bartley (HARKNESS), Richardson, Wheeler.

First printed in: Aldershot News and Mail