Across the high moors to Bourton on a dark Saturday afternoon, managing to avoid the coachloads of tourists, to play a “development” side.
Found out that various bods had unpeeled themselves from their sick beds to turn up, plus Guillaume as a welcome guest from the 3rds to make up a squad of 12.
We started off a bit slowly & let Bourton get into their stride early, which resulted in a couple of goals for them caused by defensive errors.
However, we slowly picked up the pace and by half time were looking & feeling more confident, helped by a goal from Peter and some firm tackling by Raoul & Will.
In the 2nd half,
* Midfield & forwards increased the attacking pressure, resulting in another goal by Peter and some near misses / saves from Justin, Fin & Ethan.
* Thomas was kept busy but managed to (as usual) pull off some cracking saves & powerful clearances.
* Raoul managed to continue his (very) low level aerials throughout, which were greatly appreciated (for different reasons) by everyone else on the pitch.
Although our pace, confidence & movement off the ball improved during the second half, the effects of the lurgy were now showing and Bourton took advantage of that to score more goals on quick breaks, ranging from the sublime via “oops, sorry about that” (me – unfortunate defensive deflection) to “how on earth did that one go in?”. Final score 2-6.
Having said that, on another day it could have been more like 4-5, and we found out afterwards that this team had narrowly lost to the top two teams in our league (Ciren 4s & Winchcombe – who will be promoted in Apr 25) by only one goal – so not a bad result after all.
Onwards & upwards next week to Gloucester at Playa del Brockworth – hopefully by then everyone will have recovered from their various ailments with lots of multivitamins & SAD lamp time.
Many thanks to:
* Matt Pinless for supporting us, and for keeping track of when our goals were scored.
* whoever organised the pre-match warmup for Thomas & the squad, and for supplying the half time jelly babies & Haribos (bad omission by me!).
MoM: Peter for his sterling work in midfield & for scoring our 2 goals.
(with honourable mentions to Will, Fin, Adrian & Ethan)
DoD: By a large margin, Fin “Hungry Hippo” Brafield for:
1. Having a 3 course lunch* beforehand, with the resulting effect on his mobility lasting for 3/4 of the match
2. Nominating his dad as DoD when denied the chance to go to match teas – in front of an appreciative audience
* possibly exaggerated for comic effect – or not?
Categories: Match Reports