Match Reports from 4th October

Banbury Masters   4-1 Northamptron Masters

Goals: Tom Salverson. 

Once again the Saints masters took the field with a gallant bare 11 as Banbury had assembled a squad of 16 . Saints started brightly and kept good control of the ball – prompted forward by the midfield of Darbyshire, Macca, Tom S and Paul Denton created several good chances which the Banbury keeper did well to keep out from forwards Dave Henry and Martin Wilkes. It was no surprise when midway through the first half another free flowing move resulted in Tom Salverson poaching a well worked goal. This signalled a change of approach by the Banbury team who started to press higher up the pitch using their squad to its full. The result being the remainder of the first half resembling a Saints rendition of the Alamo – only the dogged defending by Phipps, Knight, debutant Jon Keep and John Stone and some inspired keeping by Pete Adey restricted this onslaught to just 1 Banbury goal.

All square at half time – the second half was a free flowing match with chances being created at both ends, however it was the Banbury squad rotation that provided the real edge – being able to constantly rotate 5 people really made the difference and they added 3 further goals to give the scoreline a fair reflection of the match. A great effort by the 11 Saints masters to stick with it for 70 minutes, really enjoyable game on a brand new pitch. It again shows that Masters is a squad game.

Banbury then entertained us royally in their usual style at the local Indian .

Man of the match – Pete Adey

West Bridgford 4s 3 – 3 Men’s 4th XI
 

Goals – Cam Young, Rahul Joshi & Ian Macilwaine

First league game of the season saw the 4s travel North to West Bridgford to start the campaign. With the rain having stopped just in time the new look 4s started the game in shaky fashion having to absorb a lot of early pressure from the opposition. With plenty of new faces in the side and a bit of rust in places it took 15 minutes for us to get in to the game. West Bridgford managed to capitalise on the early pressure and grabbed the lead converting a short corner.

We gradually grew into the game and through some great running up top from Cameron Young and Max Wilkinson carved out a few chances of our own and managed to really test the Bridgford keeper.

West Bridgford managed to grab an early second half goal leaving us with a lot of work to do. Improving the whole time and with a lot better ball retention in the second half Cameron Young managed to pull one back for us with a nicely taken reverse finish, 2-1 game on. We had the momentum and were really worrying West Bridgford leading to a few fiery encounters and the odd squaring up of players! Unfortunately with the extra pushing we did trying to find that elusive equaliser it left some gaps further back and despite some great defending from the back 4 we slipped back to a 2 goal deficit due to a quality deflected goal, not much could be done about this one.

With 20 to go and 3-1 down we had some work to do. With the seemingly tireless Ian Macilwaine distributing the ball out to our pace on the wings and up front we were pressuring the oppositions back four and clawed our way back in to the game when Rahul Joshi rounded the keeper and slotted the ball nicely to give us a chance.

With a slight formation change we started to get them on the counter and won a short. With the four defenders parting like the red sea Ian Macilwaine had what felt like acres of space to smash the ball in from the top of the D to make it 3-3! The scoreline remained the same despite a disallowed goal and a worrying last minute short for West Bridgford to give us our first point for the season. All in all a promising start.

MOM – Can Young
DOD – Rich Say

Men’s 2nd XI 1-7 Belper

Goals: Alex Blunt

The 2s got their league campaign off to a disatourous start, as they shipped 4 unanswered goals in a very uninspiring first half display.

With a half-time change in formation, the team came out in the second half utterly transformed, as they went on to dominate the second half and peppered the Belper goal with shots. Sadly these shots couldnt be converted and they were made to suffer as Belper hit them on the counter-attack to score a further 3. A late consolation goal from Alex Blunt was the least the 2s deserved for a very strong second half performance.