Men's 3rd's v Leicester, 01/12/2007

Last Saturdays match saw the men's 3rd team visit Leicester in the first of our reverse fixtures. Despite Leicester putting in 16-0 and 10-0 score lines against other teams, we arrived with confidence that we could really challenge them as no team has managed to dominate us so far this season.

The game started with a concerted period of pressure from Leicester on our goal. This included a save by me that left me thankful for buying a longer stick for this season. After about 10 minutes we managed to break into their half and started to show what we could. Some nice passing manoeuvres were created by Chris Towner, Pete Chesney and Matt Bunker. Also Patrick Chambers really started to worry Leicester with his pace on the right wing. Within a couple of minutes a well worked ball was knocking into the goal from a reverse stick from Jim Howarth. Unfortunately Leicester replied by winning a short corner. From the short, Leicester managed to score by hitting the ball straight though Seb’s legs (the keeper). At half time the score line was one a piece and were confident that we could take the win.

Unfortunately in the second half despite worrying their keeper several times we failed to score and at times struggled to get the ball through the midfield. As Leicester put more pressure on 2 goals were scored. The first was soft goal scored at the near post and the second was knocked in by one of the players as the ball flew across the face of the goal in mid air. I must take some blame for this goal as I should have been marking that man closer and the ball would have been deemed to be dangerous if I were standing next to him.

At the finale whistle Leicester had one the game 3-1. However they did comment that it had been a tough match and were pleased with the effort we had put in. Man of the match for me was Matt Bunker who in midfield put in a tremendous effort defending aswell as attacking.