Witton Albion JFC

With the fixture moved to Middlewich Leisure Centre 3G and the weather being cold and windy this was always going to be a tricky fixture playing an unknown team.
The game kicked off with us playing against the wind and Ruskin used the advantage to put us under pressure and within minutes had gone 1-0 up. Their second followed quickly as the boys didn't adapt to the conditions at all and they stood off with the goalscorer running virtually the length of the pitch unchallenged. The boys were very poor in the first half not dealing with the wind or the opposition but eventually they rallied towards the end and started to press the advantage to get an equaliser just before half time.
Second half was wind with. Ruskin however managed to hold us for a while and eventually scored a third goal from a free kick on the edge of the penalty area when there was no organisation of the team to prevent what turned out to be a simple goal. Not taking anything away from the back four who, for most of the match had to cope on their own. Sam B, Tom C, Harvey and Ethan managed to soak up as much of the pressure as they could as Ruskin pressed on.
A second goal for ourselves closed the gap but then, as if to say that today wasn't our day two shots in succession hit each of the posts to deny us an equaliser.
Eventually, despite Ruskins best efforts to delay the game as much as possible with what can only be described as "gamesmanship of the 1st order" we eventually got the equaliser.
As we pressed for the winner we were hit with a sucker punch from a ball over the top which should have been dealt with but wasn't resulting in a last minute winner which was celebrated with the entire Ruskin squad running on the pitch a piling on top of the goalscorer. This was closely followed by time wasting of the 1st order as the right back went down because he couldn't tie his boot laces, the centre forward diving in the corner trying to get a free kick.
It isn't great when you lose but the "tactics" of time wasting and diving are trained into a team and it is an element of the game that needs to be removed from the game. We will be ready for this in the return match!
Parents Man of the Match went to Tom B; Managers Man of the Match went to Charlie L.