Willand vs Larkhall
I know it’s a cliché, but Non-League football really can be explained using Greek Mythology. Hear me out.
Sisyphus is a great example.
For those who need reminding: Sisyphus was a Corinthian king cunning enough to cheat death twice, and arrogant enough that the gods decided enough was enough. His punishment was eternity spent pushing a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down every time he got near the top.
Forever. No finish line, no moment where the job is finally done. Just pushing. There is no evidence that the hill was in Larkhall though.
But tell me that this doesn’t sound like another season in Non-League Football. The continuous rise, followed by the inevitable fall.
It’s not the only example though.
If Sisyphus is the eternal grind of non-league, Icarus is the cautionary tale. The flight that goes brilliantly right up until it doesn’t. Nobody tells this story better than Truro City.
Under an ambitious owner, a club went from county football to the brink of the Football League in the space of a few extraordinary seasons, winning titles and cups almost every year and collecting five promotions in six seasons on the way to the second tier of non-league (that’s only two steps away from playing Crewe!)
But the wings were made of wax and ambition, and the closer they got to the sun; well you get the idea. Eventually the business empire that had funded the rise could no longer sustain it, leading to the club’s finances unravelling. Thankfully the club has since regained both its wings and its footing, but the shape of the story is unmistakable: not a slow fade, but a rise so steep it couldn’t hold, followed by a fall precisely as sudden as the climb. Ambition isn’t the problem. It’s forgetting there’s a sun up there at all.
And then we have Achilles’ Heel. In Greek mythology, Achilles was dipped in the River Styx as a baby to make him invulnerable — but his mother held him by the heel to do it, so that one spot never touched the water. It became the only part of him that could be hurt, and it’s exactly where he was eventually killed. Hence “Achilles’ heel”, the one weakness in something otherwise strong. Every team has one. The single flaw that undoes hours of otherwise perfectly good work, the weakness so specific and so repeated that opposition fans clock it before kick-off.
For a season, a few years ago, for Willand, it was the thing that we still don’t talk about.
The Whites would compete into injury time, either holding a lead or at least having a point in the bag when — whoosh — one set-piece, one moment of concentration lost, one moment of brilliance from an ex-player and we suddenly conceded. Our own Achilles’ heel. But I’ve said enough. I don’t want to upset the Gods.
Thankfully the days of ancient Greece are long behind us now and Willand came into today’s game following a Bank Holiday weekend that saw them progress in the FA Trophy against Falmouth before winning a hard earned point against Devon rivals Bideford.
Opponents Larkhall Athletic came into the game with big wins over Westbury and Dorchester buoying the Larks after a mixed start to their season.
Manager Ben Watson continued to use the full depth of his squad and Willand made the perfect start, with Bateson picking up the ball after excellent work from Rooke, with the former lifting the ball over Armstrong in the Larkhall goal with both precision and finesse to send the hardy few into raptures.
The second goal arrived on 27 minutes, Zack Williams taking a pass in his stride before driving towards goal and calmly slotting the ball into the bottom right corner. Rovers continued to push for a third before the interval but the scoreline held at the break.
Half Time — Willand Rovers 2-0 Larkhall Athletic
The second half brought a slightly scrappier edge, with a mini flare-up in the corner on 52 minutes resulting in yellow cards for players on both sides as tempers briefly ran hot. Larkhall found a route back into the game on 63 minutes, a move down the left flank leading to a well-struck effort from eighteen yards that gave Seedhouse little chance.
The goal should have given the home team a reminder not to take their foot off the gas, but unfortunately Willand responded by doing exactly that as the visitors pushed for the equaliser.
Nerves were settled on 81 minutes when Kempster converted from the spot to restore the two-goal cushion and put the result beyond real doubt.
There was still time for one more goal though. MacIver-Redwood rose unchallenged at a corner to round off the scoring and finally settle the 90th minute nerves.
In the end it was a comfortable win that hid a lack of concentration in the second half that on another day could have seen a different result.
But that’s the thing about Greek Tragedies; They aren’t always tragic.
For every Trojan Horse, for every Pandora’s box and for every multi-headed Hydra, there is Perseus defeating Medusa, or Theseus outsmarting the Minotaur.
Football fans will almost inevitably look at the worst case scenarios.
But, for today at least, Willand were more akin to Zeus than to Hades.
Full Time — Willand Rovers 4-1 Larkhall Athletic
