MATCH REPORTS

Games played on: Sat 8th Oct 2011
1stXI v BANK OF ENGLAND 1ST XI
Drew Score: 0-0 LEAGUE Home
Scorers:
Report: A million times better than last week. Only the visitors keeper stopped us winning the game, two superb saves and they could of nicked it at the end. Nice to see some old faces afterwards. Everybody played well against an organised team. Liam said it was nice to see Mark get off the ground, whatever did he mean? Paul got on well with the ref (very rare!) and Tans brought 2 shut out jugs (even rarer!!!)A P next see you there!.
2ndXI v WEST WICKHAM 2ND XI
Lost Score: 1-3 LEAGUE Away
Scorers:
Report: NOT RECEIVED
3rdXI v SOUTHGATE OLYMPIC 3RD XI
Lost Score: 2-9 LEAGUE Home
Scorers:
Report: NOT RECEIVED
4thXI v WINCHMORE HILL 5TH XI
Drew Score: 2-2 Away
Scorers:
Report: NOT RECEIVED
5thXI v BROOMFIELD 6th XI
Drew Score: 2-2 LEAGUE Home
Scorers: KYLE LUKE
Report: Man of the Match: Sam Payne (with a big shout out to the back four in general)

A great and hard game of two teams coming together who knew very little about each other even though undefeated after their two initial games, however by the end of the match both teams knew the rematch will be top billing and a quality grudge session.

In summary of the positives about our performance I would say our back five were immense and when we played compact and quickly and broke from our half we scored two goals. Everyone worked hard and even with two players injured - for 20 minutes of the second half we coped and mastered a title challenging Broomfield team and mastered them for the first 20 minutes of the first half.

Both our goals were extremely well crafted….hey actually they were brilliant!

Negatives - for the last two weeks the team has had a squad of around 14 or 15 players turning up only for the team to have no subs! Last week players were tired and could not come off the pitch, this week I had a hamstring injury and Mikey D had to move upfront to play due to a bad injury – the fact that we draw this game says huge amounts about this team and our quality. Whilst in terms of our play the only negative is that we need to play a passing game across midfield better; attack a little quicker and remember this is a Saturday team and so stop playing about with the ball in our half!

The game for the first 15 min was pretty even with OSFC being power and organised and Broomfield being fast and playing a hardcore passing game in our final third. However within 20 minutes our power and organisation told. The first goal was made down our left with the ball going from the half way line with Glenn passing to Robbie who went strong down the left to whip in a hard and quick cross which Luke manage to head back for Kyle to volley in the right hand corner – quality!

From that point on Broomfield started to test us but we stood up to their challenge with Nick marshalling the backline very well – everyone had their tactics head on and this saw us to half time.

The second half saw the other Nick come on as striker and the team being controlled and disciplined in soaking up Broomfield pressure. We knew enough to start breaking beautifully from their attacks and we did so with pace and power but leaning our lessons from the first half as by now we had stopped messing with the ball across our midfield – the world was good and our reward came. The second goal was again a great move in that we soaked up pressure as our forwards were helping out just inside our half way line. Murphy, Nick and Dan were doing their thing at the back on the right and this allowed the ball to move out quickly to the left for Robbie again to bomb down the left and cue up a brilliant diagonal ball for Luke to run on to and then with class take on one player then two defenders with pace and make space to smash the ball in the back of the net – a quality goal.

Credit to Broomfield because from that point on it was all them but Sam Payne had his best game for OSFC in that the guy’s handling was strong his holding of shots brilliant and organisation of our defensive walls spot on! Then with Dan Avis taking control of backline duties we were 13 minutes away from a great win but I have to take my hat off to Broomfield as they stepped up another gear and with the two injuries we had this took its toll and with sustained pressure they managed to pulled two goals back. But wait! There was still drama at the death as Broomfield had a strong penalty shout ignored and OSFC again breaking brilliantly - Luke cracked a great shot that hit the underside of the crossbar went in and bounced out only for the ref not give it!

Everyone played well and this game I hope puts us in good stead for what will be a long hard season so let’s keep rocking and rolling folks.