Heathfield & Horam U14s vs Little Common

What a great game of football that was!

We didn’t have a proper goalkeeper and we’re missing our first choice centre half but despite that we won the game far more comfortably than the score reflected. Firstly a huge thank you to Sammy Sharma and Will Russell for volunteering to play in goal. You did us proud and have firmly put yourselves as our third choice keeper duo!

Having lost 8-2 to this team earlier this year we looked to be compact and win our individual battles. From the first whistle we looked the better team and having had a couple of half chances we finally took the lead after 10 minutes when Will crossed from the left and their centre half could only put it into his own net with Lucas prowling behind him. We were easily the better team and deservedly added a second through Elliot (I can play anywhere) Smith who smashed one home from the edge of the area from a corner after 18 minutes. We looked comfortable and played some excellent football with Jude and Little Oli owning the middle of the pitch. They scored just before the half hour mark through their only effort on goal in the half. Their number 9 was a very good player and scored a lovely goal. It stayed 2-1 to the break.

We changed things around at half time as we always do to give everyone a game but I can honestly say I’ve never found it harder to take players off as no one deserved to come off. Sam H, Johnno and Oli F had been solid and composed at the back and never looked in trouble against their best players but I had to make some changes and Cameron, Josh and Mason fitted into their positions so made the hard decision for me. Lucas had also been a real handful and worked tirelessly for the team and made a difference to our attack and deserved more but with the game so close I didn’t want to take off Conor at that time so he made way for Roman to come in. We went 3-5-2 in the second half and made it 3-1 within 2 minutes of the restart with Oli H getting on the end of a pullback from Conor. We then scored a fourth 2 minutes later with Sammy providing the pull back to Conor and we set up for kick off only for their assistant to call the ref back and claim an offside for a pullback!!

We looked comfortable again and had it not been for Sammy having joined the goalkeepers union he would have scored at least 3 more goals and Conor also had 2-3 good chances to score but we didn’t convert. Their no. 9 then made it 3-2 with 18 minutes left with a great turn that left Josh, Jude and Sammy in a daze and put it across Will in the goal!

We never stopped trying to play football and if any team was going to score again it was going to be us but it just didn’t fall for us and we all breathed a sense of relief when the final whistle went, not only because we won but it stopped us getting into a fight!

ALL players contributed today and I am so proud of how we played. Man of the match could have been anyone but Joe ‘Brady’ Spary was exceptionally good and tore them apart time and again and therefore got the MoM award. Well done boys.

Thanks to all the parents that came to watch, I hope it was pleasing to see how far they’ve come over the past year or so. Thanks also to Tim for doing the linesman job again and for Will’s dad for providing box office entertainment! A good reminder to the boys that we do our talking on the pitch by winning and it made it all the more sweeter given the ‘errors’ their official made running the line!

Have a great weekend. See you Monday for shooting practice!!!!!!