Under 9’s defeat leaders to go Level on points at top

Posted in U9s News ... March 14th, 2010

So probably the toughest week of our season so far,

Last week’s results pushed us up into 2^nd place and by the quirks of the fixture list and the bad weather delays we ended up playing the Woodley Saints Cougars who were 3^rd one point behind us and Barton Rovers Royals the long time leaders of the division now only a point in front of us.

A tense and expectant band of parents, grandparents and supporters gathered for the first game against Woodley, the game started brightly we chances coming at both ends. Both teams looked dangerous at corners both going close before the break. Some stern words at half time from the management team failed to really fire us into action as the close battled continued. Taylor was the busier of the 2 keepers but the game seemed likely to finish as a draw but Woodley had a great chance in the last few minutes which Taylor couldn’t quite get to but somehow Harry managed to backtrack and cleared the ball off the line. So a draw was a good result in the end against a very powerful Woodley side. Brandon picked up the effort award, was there a blade of grass on the pitch he didn’t cover? As their assistant manager remarked, he has the longest throw in the league and takes probably the best goal kicks as well!

Then onto the 2^nd game against the very accomplished Barton side, the lads really raised their game in this match, from the off they pressed Barton hard for the ball and had the better of the opening exchanges. Barton play the ball very direct from the back so our defensive duo of Jake and Leon had to be at their best with Leon particularly prominent in the air. Then a goal from the top draw, awesome floated pass from Brandon, we watched holding our breath as the ball dropped to Harry who dispatched his volley into the net for a 1-0 lead. The game continued to be a hard battle before Brandon knocked in another great ball which Harry controlled before swiveling and hooking over the keeper for 2-0. In truth we started the second half very poorly and conceded an early goal, would they stand firm, would they roll over, could they show the character, you bet they could! To Barton’s credit they threw everything at us for the last 10 minutes, we had the odd breakaway which Kyle almost scored from but the man machine of a defence stood firm. We had our hearts in our mouths in the last minute when Barton broke through but Taylor came to rescue making a great tackle to clear. Harry picked up the effort award for his 2 goals and all round work rate.