A damp and dreary Sunday morning at Sir William Ramsey School (home of Penn & Tylers U12’s), grey sky, damp under foot and thankfully no rain.
We’ve played against each other previously, our first match last season, which shared the honours at 1-1. We know several of their players and what they can do with a ball on a pitch, so it is like meeting your old friends. You are still friends, but you want to play better and win the game.
Our starting line-up was; Dylan, Kyran, Ethan, Dillon, Finn, Matthew, Jan, Sahib and Jack supported by Lucy, Lily-Mai, Sami and Avy.
The game started off with end to end moves, Penn were moving the ball quickly and using their pace to get behind our midfield and defence. We were a little more gritty, winning the ball through gutsy (well-timed) tackles and slowly working the ball into their half of the pitch. The first goal came from a free kick on our left wing. Jack floated in the ball which wasn’t dealt with by their players or keeper and ended up in the back of their goal.
Penn, rose to the challenge, pushed us back and back into our goal mouth with Dylan and the defence putting bodies in the way of their shots. Penn struck from within the six yard box, the rebound off Dyaln fell to the feet of their striker and the scoreline was levelled 1-1. That is how it remained until half-time.
Despite some (typical management tinkering) our team stayed focussed and battled for every ball as if their lives depended upon it. The second half was one of strong challenges, crunching tackles and whilst our players seemed to take the brunt of it, they all got back up and got back into the game.
We didn’t see many chances in the second half, whilst we were deep inside our own half our defence and midfield were strong. There was some nice interplay and passing, but not as much as in the first half. The longer the match went on the more tired our team got. The tackles and challenges were draining their energy to the point where we did not really escape our half. Despite this, we held our own and Penn scored two goals by counter-attacking and using their pace through the middle.
The scoreline doesn’t reflect the team effort and determination that was shown by our players.
As all the great managers say, “we are free to concentrate on the league from now on and we’re not overly worried about the cup”.
Well done everyone, some great performances out there!