A lovely day and excellent opposition awaited us today in our match against Ise Lodge Kites. They are League leaders in our division, and we soon discovered why. However, both sides started brightly, with some smart movement off the ball by both sides. Most of the game was being played down the middle and when Marcus latched on to a loose ball, there was only going to be one result-a now-trademark coolly-taken goal. The pace quickened and Ise Lodge probed us on all sides to find a way through. Finally, the found a weak point on our left, and they exploited the gap with some excellent close-ball play to bury an equalizer past a stranded Sam. Scant minutes later, they repeated the move to push 2-1 up. Showing excellent collective thinking, Ise Lodge then tried exactly the same move on our other flank-and got the same result. This however, had the desired effect on Gold, and we started to string some lovely moves from the wings, fed from the middle by moves from Alex and Thomas, only to be caught off-side time and again. Harry R, in particular, was frustrated by the effectiveness of the Kites' trap. Jack was loading the ball down the pitch, only for their solid defence to beat our players with their quicker control of the floating balls, and when the ball was then sent over our heads past bth James, Matt, and Josh, it took some quick moves by Sam to keep the score down. As our spirit returned and our confidence grew, we started to push by their midfield and Lucaas took a smart pass on the run and directed a superb lob over a helpless keeper to bring the deficit down with good style. We tried again to repeat that move, and even had a controversial ball ruled that it did not cross the line, but then Ise Lodge began to mark Lucaas and Harry R out of the game and played balls around them. We then over-compensated in the middle and were caught on the counter by a mis-kick which saw the half-whistle blow as they scored a confident fourth to make it 4-2.

     As the half began, we used a superb combination of Alex and Marcus in the middle, being fed by Matt, James B, James W, and Josh, pushing the ball wide to Lucaas and Harry, in order to beat their off-side trap. All good play that we had been working on extensively in training. This paid off when the ball went right and Lucaas picked up the ball to slot straight past their keeper. We tried this exact move time after time, for another 10 minutes, but their keeper pulled off some very brave saves and finally their defence plugged that gap. Then as the sun rose higher and directly in our eyes, Sam made an uncharacteristic mistake and left a ball that looked as though it was going wide to roll into the corner to put them 5-3 up. This was the start of a nightmare 10 minutes which saw 3 line clearances, one own goal, and three mis-kicks end up in the net. James was taken off with a ham-string injury and Lucaas was involved in a nasty collision which saw him limping in the last minute, and it looked as though it was all over. One final attack with nearly everyone involved, and the final whistle went.

    A few minutes of sunshine and madness-individual and collective errors, through some players still feeling ill, and tiredness, coupled with a very impressive and gentlemanly display by Ise Lodge, cost us a game, which up to the last 10 minutes we still looked as though we could win, never mind draw.  It's not nice losing anytime, but we threw away our chances today. However, all credit to Ise Lodge, who played superb football and were very nice about it, too! I look forward to the return leg of this game. We can pick ourselves up with pride today, because although we didn't do ourselves any favours in those "mad 10 minutes", we did show that we can play with the best teams in the League and score 3 past the League leaders. Another tough game next week, but one I know we can win.

    Man of the Match-again very close, but Lucaas got it because of the nature of the goals he scored-we need more of the same, please!   

 

My thanks for all the great help and support from the parents, especially Ian for running the line, Arden for reffing, our sponsors, Raunds for their upkeep of the pitch, Gordon, the manager of Ise Lodge for his sportsmanship, the Ise Lodge parents likewise, and both sets of players for their great sportsmanship and good football.