Witton Albion JFC

First of all a big Witton thank you to our friends Macca and Gaynor for organising today's fixture.
We knew very little about this group of players (for obvious reasons) but we were curious and excited in equal measures. It’s not every week that we get to play against an All-American set of soccer players. It was interesting to see our boys ‘eyeing up’ the players during the pre-match warm up – but as ever our team has a steely confidence about it and we could all see that they were feeling good about this fixture. We knew the first five minutes was going to tell us everything we needed to know about this team and how we were going to respond. Within seconds there was a fifty-fifty challenge on the right wing and it was a surprise to see the our man on the right Olly S didn't win the battle – however what he did next was the difference between the two teams - we could see the determination in his eyes and he ran at the player and came out with the ball at his feet and headed off down the wing. There were some good performances in our team but Olly S continued this attitude every second he was on the pitch and he was our ‘stand out’ player.
Across the park our players looked really up for this game – everyone nodding and smiling as they watched the performance. Within 10 minutes we saw Aaron and Evan running through the opposition players and forcing their keeper off his line making a good attempt to stop the attack as the shot hit his body. However he looked on in horror as it landed at Tom’s feet out wide left. Tommy still had a lot to do with defenders in front of him but the temptation of the empty net with the keeper scrambling back was too much to resist and he made a deft and accurate 35 yard pass into the back of the next – great goal (1 – 0).
We did not have it all our own way as our Americans cousins were strong going forward - at one point forcing Max into a great save to his right side (phew!). Normal service resumed as we looked dangerous again on set pieces – this time sharp work by Callum reacting the fastest in the box (after winning the header) to slot goal two in off the keepers hands (2 - 0).
We were pleased to see some of the training ground tactics coming into the game – we could all see the new aspect of the game where our centre halves were joining the attacks - unusual but really effective, catching our opposition by surprise.
Some nice play by our opponents resulted in a headed goal to peg us back a little (2 – 1). However this was short lived as another set piece saw our VC Owen score a well worked tap in (3 – 1). A fair score line for half time.
We started the second half with the same level of determination but it bubbled over a little and it resulted in Matty getting a ‘sin bin’ yellow card. Even down to ten men we pushed these guys really hard and yet another set piece resulted in Olly Muzzer slamming home our fourth to make it 4 – 1.
We were well and truly in command of this game now - but for a brief period we lost concentration and arguably became a little complacent, seeing UDA score two goals (4 – 3). But we never looked like losing this match and the guys should feel very proud of this performance – it looked great from the side lines.