Us (8): Jeremy, Oz, Ahmet, Jim N, Daniel, James JP, Matt
Them: 9
So not only did you rally to the cry by turning up to keep this club alive, you challenged The Other Team to a game, the audacity!
A large pitch, firm but with plenty of overnight rain made a zippy surface which gradually cut up during the morning. A resolute defence built on Ahmet and Jeremy with James filling the defensive midfield role just in front proved to be a difficult rearguard to break down. From there the ball was spread wide to the speedy rotating wingers of Matt, Jim N and Daniel or through the middle to the attacking midfield/striker duo of Oz and JP who in turn passed quickly between each other or out to the wingers. Playing together so often has obviously made us familair with each other but also better than we think! Hard work by all with good tackling, interceptions & passes though a little more communcation may help.
First half while the pitch was acceptable we had lots of one-two’s in the middle and through them with ease. JP with his twinkletoes trickery had shots straight at the keeper a couple of times and James had a pathetic left-foot-shot-and-then-fall-over situation and Jim was the most surprised to end up with the ball after their defensive mix-up and sand wedged it against the bar and upright from about 2 yards away. Award-worthy at this stage of the season! However we kept calm to come back comfortably from 2-1 down to 5-2 up at the break.
Second half much more of a mud bath and we withstood sustained pressure in the first 15 minutes but they did get back to 5-4. I think Jeremy enlightening us to the fact that we were a man down at half-time was an unnerving surprise to most us but we got them on the break and ran out comfortable 8-4 winners (two of their goals came from our defensive mistakes so effectively only two from their on efforts). Oz had a good session in goal punching out a succession of corners and Jeremy chipped a goal immediately after being allowed a rest from defensive duties. In the last 10 minutes there were basically 2 games going on with a no-mans land in the middle – very funny. Goals: JP 4, Matt 2, Jeremy 1, James 1.
Tasty stuff to watch, even better to be involved – I hope this report (joint effort from Oz, James and myself) does us justice!
A very satifying game… We worked hard, won balls, broke quicky and really played as a team.
Game of the season for me so far!