Under 11's Match Report

Boro Alliance Pumas 1 v Thrapston Town Juniors 1

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Not so much a tale of two cities, but more a tale of two fairly uninteresting east midlands market towns coming together as Thrapston took on Borough Alliance from Market Harborough. A tale of two halves it was to be as well.

Now I may be more Battenberg than Klattenburg, dear reader, but something strange happened today which I feel it only right to recount to you; Your side is one nil up. The opposition attack. The ball is won cleanly and fairly by a defender, and is brought out of defence, only for the referee to halt play for attention to be given to a downed forward – fair enough. A drop ball - not given back but contested 5 yards from the edge of the area. Ball breaks, Thrapston goalie fouls attacker – penalty.

Fair? Your correspondent didn’t think so and “lively banter” was exchanged at length with opposition supporters on the touchline. Apparently “they only give the ball back in the premiership” – so now we know, that’s all right then – everything fine.

The resultant penalty was dispatched and in truth, as Thrapston heads dropped, so the Pumas rose and at the end the Town were hanging on for their share of the points, and despite his penalty challenge Alex Vitue came to the rescue time and again as the defence badly lost their shape towards the end.

It had been so different up the penalty “incident” and a “was it a back pass” incident that surprisingly went against town minutes earlier. In the first half chance after chance was created and wasted in albeit difficult conditions, which saw some of Thrapston’s shorter players barely visible above the savannah grass, so in need of a pre-winter trim.

A good move between Mssrs Alsop and Rivett was turned in by Lewis Burton to provide Thrapston with something to show for their efforts at the break. Chances continued to be generated (and spurned) in to the second with a fine move started by Alsop, helped on by Ben Robison, and crossed by Josh Cummins was only just missed by Luke Rivett who throughout was a threat to the defence.

Then it went horribly wrong, and the side and your correspondent couldn’t recover.

In truth a good game played in excellent spirit, between two evenly matched sides who both wanted to try and play decent football not withstanding the difficult conditions.

MOTM – A Player who despite tonsillitis barely put a foot wrong again today, and is fast becoming one of the first names on the team sheet, today’s MOTM was Alex Noakes.