NEW!! My Favourite Match by Paul Hewitt: 2021

My Favourite Match

by Paul Hewitt

Regional League Division 2 play-offs, Group B

Nakhon Ratchasima 1-0 Lamphun Warrior 

Sunday 27th November, 2011

My most memorable match was a pretty poor game. In fact it was terrible. This was matchday 7 out of 10 in the Regional League play-offs and Korat were faltering. The previous six games had yielded three wins, two defeats and a draw, but one of those victories was a 2-1 defeat on the pitch which was overturned as opponents Roiet had fielded an ineligible player. The reverse fixture against Lamphun had been the dullest of stalemates imaginable whilst a week before this match Korat had gone down 3-2 at Rayong FC. A win was urgently needed to get Korat's promotion bid back on track particularly as this winnable looking match was to be followed by a daunting away trip to Krabi who had won 1-0 at Korat a few weeks previously.

The feeling that storm clouds were gathering over Korat's promotion hopes wasn't helped when the floodlights went out whilst the players were warming up. I wasn't too concerned initially. It had happened before and the lights had come back on quite quickly. Besides, the system was only four years old. But this time they didn't come back on. After an hour of darkness the players had long since left the pitch, the crowd had thinned considerably and Russ and I made the decision to trudge back to the car. 

I wasn't sure what decision the league would make but I assumed three points would probably be awarded to Lamphun. It wouldn't quite be a killer blow but we would probably have to win all three of our remaining matches to go up. But with extraordinary, poetic, movie-esque timing - and I'm sure this is how it happened - the floodlights flickered back on precisely as I put my hand on the car's door handle. Like giddy school kids we ran back to the stadium only for the lights to go off again. Then on. Then off. Then on. And at 19:40 the match that should have kicked off at 18:00 finally got underway.

And what a stinker it was! Korat had been such a swashbuckling, free-scoring side during the regular season but had looked inhibited and overly cautious in the play-offs. For 89 minutes here Korat again put in an inexplicably tepid and unadventurous performance on home soil against a very limited Lamphun side who were bottom of the six-team play-off group. Most of the crowd had drifted off, the players were drifting through the game and promotion hopes were drifting away when a pin-point cross beat a tiring Lamphun defence and was nodded home by midfielder Marcel. Manic celebrations followed as Marcel and David Lebras made a bee line for the heaving Korat hordes. 

There's nothing like a last-minute winner. But given the situation, given the circumstances, given the importance of the match, this was a last-minute winner turned up to eleven. Korat's promotion bid was firmly back on track and they never looked back. They won that tricky match at Krabi 1-0; promotion was clinched with a 2-0 win at North Bangkok the week after that, and they were confirmed as group winners with a 1-0 home win over Roiet in the final game. 

Korat have subsequently played in higher divisions in much bigger matches against much better opposition in front of much bigger crowds, but for sheer exhilaration and ecstasy, nothing beats that match in my opinion.