Chaos Reigns Supreme at the Austin Fall Cup

This year’s installment of the Austin Fall Cup comes straight out of the Twilight Zone. Cameron Road’s results ran the gamut with a 1-1-1 record which didn’t allow them to advance to the knock out rounds, but once again there was never a dull moment to be had.

Game #1: CRU 1 – Elite FC 1
In Saturday’s early game, Cameron Road squared off against a familiar D2 opponent, Elite FC. CRU hoped to work in a full squad of regulars, in addition to out-of-towners Hutch, H-Town (soon to be D-Town) Pat, and Jared – who finally shrugged off past injuries, car trouble, baby mommas and the Oklahoma indoor Mexican Mafia to make it down to Austin once again. A salty, scrappy bunch for sure. The referee’s pre-game warning of “not taking any foul language” proved to be an ominous warning to all those who failed to take his warning to heart.

Cameron Road started off the game lively, trying to get the game going to running down the flanks and putting balls into the box. Ciro was first to have a nice crack at goal with nifty left-footed blast at goal. With both teams trying to gain a foothold in the game, Elite FC was dealt a killer blow when one of their players was sent off for dissent after barely 10 minutes. A harsh red card, especially for game #1 of the tournament, but the referee wasn’t playing around with his interpretation of the zero tolerance policy for foul language. And to make matters worse for Elite FC, a handful of minutes later, yet another player was seeing red after mouthing off to the referee. Unbelievable. You have to hand it to the referee for his stance on ridding the planet of foul language, one red card at a time – but his meddling into what is commonplace on the Onion Creek fields was throwing the game into chaos after barely 1/3 of the game.

As is the case sometimes when a team feels that one of their legs is caught in a bear trap (yeah, I just invented a new metaphor), Elite FC buckled down and actually started controlling the game. Cameron Road couldn’t find the necessary gumption to close them down and keep the ball with their 2 extra men. And soon after they would pay for it, as Elite FC capitalized on some sloppy defense and actually scored a short-handed goal to close out the first half.

Feeling like Evander Hollyfield after a Mike Tyson ear brunch, Cameron Road tried to shake off the first half fog at halftime, regroup, and take Elite FC to the sword in the second half. The breakthrough finally came when BT threaded a great ball into the path of Stevie McKenna who rounded the keeper and unselfishly dished a pass to Jared, who finished on his right.

Unfortunately, even up 2 men, Cameron Road squandered their chances to get the winning goal. Willis had a nice chance at the near post, but tripped over a mysterious divot in the turf that had not been filled in from the week before. The game ended with a 5 on 1 jailbreak Cameron Road attack, with BT pumping in a cross but nobody was able to put it in the net.. and there might have been an offside flag raised… but the offending attacker slips the writer’s memory at the time of this article.

So the game ended with a 1-1 draw. Not a terrible result for Game #1, but the lack of putting away a 9-man Elite FC would come back to haunt CRU.

Game 2: CRU 1 – Goaldiggers 2
After a 2 hour “cooling off” period which included drinking beer, eating sausage, and offering wise and witty commentary to other games within earshot, Cameron Road got ready for their second game of the day against the Goaldiggers from Dallas.

Looking like a more powerful side, the Goaldiggers were coming off a 1-0 win in their first game. They sported a solid back line and a flashy, dreadlocked forward, but once Cameron Road got into the flow of the game, it became a tight, even affair.

The details of this game are a bit hazy at this point in the writer’s memory. There was a very Cameron Roadesque moment in the first half, as we gave up an own goal as Big Hutch rose to head down a goal kick, but it got taken by the wind and actually beat Jay at our end. Only CRU could pull off such a feat. Down a goal in the second half, Willis dug out a ball at the near post and headed it to Chris Marks who headed home a ‘hand of God’ tying goal. Going down another goal, Cameron Road again had a great chance to tie the game at the end when Chris Peterson’s low corner kick somehow eluded Steve McKenna’s toe-poke and everyone else near the goal.

So with a tie and a win, the team turned to resident bracketologist Luke for his dissertation on the permutations and calculations of all possible outcomes and possiblities of Cameron Road advancing. After crunching the numbers, it was decided that CRU needed near maximum points from their last game, along with a little help in the way of an Elite FC loss on Sunday. Not unthinkable, but definitely an uphill battle.

At this point, it was time to finish off Saturday’s beer.

Game #3: CRU 3 – MRA 2
I think most who were a part of this one can say that it was the most bizarre Cameron Road game of all time. This one had it all. Blown calls, non calls, goals galore, a rainbow, a P/K, a non P/K, players sitting down on the pitch, players refusing to play. Basically utter chaos.

An ominous dark cloud descended on the field when everyone realized who the center referee for the game would be. We all know her, and we all perform voodoo chants, rub our buddha beads, give our sacrifices to the tree line and say our prayers that She will not be in any shape or form associated with one of our games. But on this day, those prayers went unanswered and She was standing in the center circle with the whistle at the start of the game.

Cameron Road knew that if they had any chance at advancing in the tournament, they needed to gain maximum points in this final game. That meant at best a 3-0 win, but at worst 3 goals and a win. The refugee team was coming off back-to-back losses, so they were playing for pride at this point, but could definitely play spoilers if they decided to give it their best effort.

Right out of the gate, Cameron Road was coming for blood and attacked with an urgency that they had not displayed in the two prior games. The refugees had some solid, skilled players, but they were not taking the opening Cameron Road blitzkreig well as their tempers started to unravel.

Cameron Road’s first breakthrough came on one of several first half fast breaks. Scotty (fresh from his 20 mile run on Saturday) charged down a ball on the right hand side and blew by the defenders. As he raced towards goal, Captain Chappy ran clear through on goal to his left. Once inside the box, Scott layed off a perfect pass for Chappy to one-time into the back of the net with the good’ol right foot. One goal down, two to go.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of going up a goal didn’t last too long as MRA were able to pull back a goal as their skilled midfielder pumped in a goal.

At this time the game was getting a bit testy, but She hadn’t done anything to completely botch things up… that would change. With Jared coming back into the game as a striker, Chappy played him in with a flick of the head and he was running clear in on goal. With only the last man to beat, Jared was hauled down by Pagoda from the Royal Tenenbaums – who instead of delivering a shiv to his side, used a two-handed shirt grabbing technique to stop Jared from firing off a shot. The referee decided to blow the whistle and stop play, but instead of handing out a red card for the last man back denying a clear cut goal opportunity, she brought out the yellow. This was met harshly by Cameron Road, and tempers between both teams continued to ascend.

Later in the half, MRA’s #7 pulled out a trick that even Ronaldo might not use in a competitive match, as he completed a rainbow kick to himself as he neared the Cameron Road goal. Luckily his final shot was saved by Jay, but it was yet another crazy moment in what was turning out to be a crazy game.

Jared continued his good play as he narrowly missed from inside the box, and won a deep cross that he delivered to Chappy to head over goal.

As the linesman predicted, the game would soon spin out of control as She would be unable to keep a lid on the game. Both teams, fighting their hardest for the points, were only getting unsettled by her bizarre decisions and surely distemper.

Going into the half at 1-1, Cameron Road knew they had their work cut out for them and still needed to win and score 2 more goals in the final 30 minutes. As the second half got underway, it was MFA who doubled their tally with a nice move and finish from their #7, who was terrorizing CRU all day long.

In the final 15 minutes, the tackles were flying as Cameron Road tried to claw their way back into the game with hard work and scrappy play. They charged the box in waves, trying to get that tying goal.

Failing to do so from open play, it was set piece specialist Luke who breathed life into Cameron Road’s efforts with a majestic free kick from 30 yards out that dipped, hit the crossbar, and bounced into the back of the net. At 2-2 it was again “game on” with Cameron Road scrambling for the winner.

The final 10 minutes of the game became utter chaos as the referee lost her already loose grip on the game. First she yellow carded an angry Chappy for spiking the ball into the ground after an apparent no-call on a foul from a Willis cross, then she awarded CRU an inside the box indirect free kick for an apparent back pass to the MRA keeper. To be fair, the ball seemed to bounce around inside the box and there wasn’t any deliberate attempt to play a pass, but she gave it anyway. The MRA players were none to happy about it, and it took a good 5 minutes to actually get the play restarted.

And then came THE P/K. With a last ditch attack, Cameron Road had a 3 against 1 break inside the box. Stevie McKenna strode in from the right hand side and fired off a shot as he was fouled. The referee awarded him a P/K, and then all hell broke loose. MRA were having none of it. They had players surrounding her, yelling at her, sitting in the goal, punting the ball 50 yards down the field. Chaos. As both teams tried to sort out the situation, the referee had proclaimed something to the affect that MRA were “a bunch of bad, angry men who wanted to quit the game”. So she was calling for the game to end, half of MRA’s players wanted to quit the game for this “great injustice of a P/K”, the other half wanted to continue the game. Chaos.

Finally, Aubry Daniels, the league’s head referee came in and sorted out the situation. Like it or not, the game would either end with a Cameron Road victory due to a MRA forfeit, or Cameron Road would be allowed to take the P/K. As Stevie McKenna stood on the spot to take his kick, the MRA goalie turned around to expose his rather large back side in some sort of final act of defiance. Not being bothered by this in the least, Steve stroked home the penalty giving Cameron Road the 3-2 win and some hope of advancing.

So ended one of the most bizarre, yet entertaining, sporting events at Onion Creek.

Unfortunately, Cameron Road didn’t get the help from the other teams that they needed to advance to the knock-out rounds, so their play on the pitch was over. But they left knowing that if they could give that same effort week-in and week-out, there was a lot to look forward to in the coming spring season.

Thanks to everyone who turned out for the 2010 Austin Fall Cup!!