[Devongone]

I've said all this a thousand times before, but we (yesterday too) and lots of other teams habitually concede goals in the last few minutes. Managers and pundits habitually ascribe such goals to loss of concentration. And for forty years I've been thinking it continues to happen because football is full of lazy thinking and continually comes up hackneyed "over-the-moon" explanations to substitute for intelligent thought. Loss of concentration is no more than a symptom of the disease.

I've told this story before too, but it does illustrate how I realised how all the wise managers and clever pundits just haven't got it. We had a good Sunday League top division team - I was the keeper. We were very good defensively. At the time lots of players who were paid on Saturdays to play, also had a Sunday game. Three of our rivals had a lot of such players, but only one of our team played at that level. So into our league came a team from Mosborough, who, playing in Sheffield, hadn't lost a single game for two seasons and had been politely asked to move on - so they came to Chesterfield. And they carried on winning in our league too. But we were a team excellent on the break and hard to break down. With very little possession we got two in the first half. Second half we had to kick up our slight slope and immediately the ref' gave a ridiculous penalty against us which I should've saved, except I expected something much better from a guy called Colin Oxley who had scored at Wembley for Matlock the previous season. Despite our ability on the break they then came at us like Rorke's Drift. But under siege we were great, not just me, the team. With about ten to go and us 2-1 up, they mounted a furious attack, we were blocking shots and putting in last minute tackles. It ended on a good save from me out of the top corner, which led to a corner we cleared. At that moment our full back, absolutely in the moment, yelled at the opposition something like, "Come on, let's have some more, let's see what you've got!" And we knew then I think they would never score and in the dying minutes they knew it too!

Only afterwards did I realise that the operative words here were actually WILL, COMMITMENT, BELIEF, TOGETHERNESS. Yes we maintained our concentration, our focus, but that was because we had all of the above. Teams who concede late train themselves to do it again and again. It has happened before, it may happen again, they are waiting for it. And the more they are warned against it the more it happens. When we were holding out I don't think we had a thought in our head about conceding a goal. Like our full-back we actually wanted to stop them some more and were loving doing it.

The old Liverpool side could be relied upon to score last minute goals when in trouble. They didn't have any genius method except they piled on pressure, the KOP roared and they were used to winning so when the chance came they kept cool. BUT a lot of the time that goal came because the other team simply folded. Everyone else folded, they hadn't won at Anfield for 15 years, it was just a matter of time before their fatal mistake. They didn't consciously want it to happen, but that doesn't mean they didn't cause it themselves.

So my question is how does a side like Chesterfield deliberately create all those positive attributes that enable players to hang together when the going gets tough and thus to concentrate. Certainly yelling at players in the changing room won't enhance their ability to concentrate, or increase their feelings of togetherness ........