Kirkby FC 1–2 Wellsford Athletic: the cruelty of efficiency

Let me be unfashionable for a moment: the decisive moment was not the 67th minute, when Lourens Buisma-Veld pulled a goal back and the home end briefly produced a noise you normally pay extra for. The match was settled at 39 minutes, when William Cranford scored his second, and everything after that was Kirkby arguing with a referee who had already left the building.

Wellsford arrived as the second-best team in the division on 58 points, against a Kirkby side clinging to 17th place and 34. Their previous encounter had ended 2-2, which gave the home supporters the dangerous idea that a draw was theirs for the taking. Cranford corrected that notion quickly. In the 15th minute, Kohei Asano's pass put him clean through, and the finish was the kind that makes you check whether the goalkeeper has gone for a sandwich. Six minutes before half-time he repeated himself, unassisted, arriving at the end of a loose ball in the box like a man collecting a refund.

You get what you pay for with a striker in that kind of form. Cranford had scored in each of his two previous starts; his production is no longer a pleasant surprise, it is a scheduled delivery. Wellsford were not at their most beautiful, but a club that wants things from this league does not require beauty when efficiency gets the job done.

Kirkby's response after the interval had merit. Ikari's pass for Buisma-Veld at 67 minutes was the finest moment of the match, and the sustained pressure that followed suggested there was a team in there somewhere. There was not quite enough of one. The equaliser never came, and the thoughts of the Kirkby back five were expressed at the final whistle with the kind of head-shaking you see from people who have just read a disappointing bank statement.

The table does not pause for sore feelings. Matchday 34 arrives tomorrow, and Kirkby will need to carry something better than the memory of a previous 2-2 draw into it. Wellsford, you suspect, will not need to carry anything at all.