Match Report - Judgement day - Mens 1's 3 - 0 Mens 2's
So the day was finally upon us and everyone it seemed had been giving it the biggun before the game saying they were going to win. Well, it only seems fair to do the match justice and give it a match report and here it is.
The first teams aims for the game were don't be complacent, make sure we play properly, be professional and we should be OK. We knew it was never going to be easy, but we didn't realise how difficult it was going to be.
Before the game someone stuck on the website the following comments regarding the proposed second team:
Justin (Who? - He'll need to be good)
Luke (Only 10 years old)
Marcus (Slow and Fat)
Jamie (Slow and Fat)
John (Old)
Gavin (Very Old and very slow, likely to get yellow cards when we start hammering you)
Karl (very Old - Good skills tho, likely to get very stroppy when he doesn't get the ball during the whole game, yellow card waiting to happen)
Barry (Dropped from the 1's because not good enough)
Stuart (10 years old and will get beaten up by Puppy)
Christian (Used to be good apparently)
James M (Slow - Scored last year won't this time
James L (10 years old, will get beaten up by Lee)
Steve (Who? Is this the Steve Lockwood that used to play? Thought he'd retired)
So it's probably only fair to put up a proper comment on each of them and say actually how they played in the game
Justin (He looked good I thought, and its always good to have a token Australian around for when we win the Rugby etc)
Luke (Showed what a good defender he has become, and never let his man free)
Marcus (Same as Luke except he's been a good defender for ages)
Jamie (Did OK, against a strong and fast right side)
John (Same as Jamie, I thought that Mellish and Lee would have a field day down the right but the two of them did OK)
Gavin (I'd forgotten what he was like, he constantly got in the way, slowed play down, tried to influence the umpire, fouled the opposition and covered all the gaps. A quality all round midfield destroyer and horrible to play against)
Karl (Didn't get the chance to do too much as we knew he was one of the danger men and closed him down quickly)
Barry (Same as Karl)
Stuart (Got the better of Puppy in attack, showed some great skills and why he is going to be a great player, but Puppy got his own back by getting past him more)
Christian (A handful all day, played well, went down injured like a girl twice)
James M (A handful all day, played well)
James L (Only given a few minutes as the team played so well, but did nothing wrong when he came on and looked good, should have played for longer)
Steve (Good captaincy by keeping himself off the pitch (have you seen the size of him now!)and by how the whole team played, bad captaincy for not quite giving James enough of a game. His team were a credit to him.
So there it is, in the end the 1's just had that little extra quality and know how, and 2 short corner goals from Strawberry and a goal from Chris Crowhurst were enough to see the team home. The game showed the strength in depth of the club, which can only be a good thing, as well as why no one in the 1's can be complacent for their place and why the 2's are top of the league.
I believe this is now to be a permanent fixture. Can't wait.
Southend 4s 0 - 6 Wapping 5s
Too many Christmas Puds!
The Christmas and New Year festivities proved a distant memory on a cold, windy afternoon at Wapping. Following a very lazy start, Wapping capitalised heavily on Southend’s unusually lacklustre midfield challenges and defending duties. The 4s found themselves 3-0 down at the half time interval with only themselves to blame.
Returning captain Cliff Lockwood had plenty to talk (make that shout) about during the break, and the second half was notable for an overall improvement in the urgency of the play with a number of scoring opportunities made, albeit unsuccessfully converted. Wapping had the game under control, however, and ultimately managed to increase their lead by another three goals proving why they are this year’s runaway league leaders so far.
So, Southend’s unbeaten run of three games came to an abrupt end and the team made the sorry trudge home resolving to burn off those excess mince pies during next week’s training!
Southend & Benfleet Ladies 1st XI 1 - 2 Old Loughts 3rd XI
What a game!!!! We deserved to win!!!! We were the better team!!!! And we’re not bitter and twisted about it!!!!
Well the later is true and I think I’m the only bitter and twisted one out of all of us! But we played really well against a team who normally has the capabilities to beat us fairly (still bitter and twisted).
We started well and in control, Naomi scored a goal within the first 20 minutes and set the lead. Everyone played well considering we hadn’t played as a full team since the 11th December. It took us a while to settle down but the majority of play in the first half was ours. As normal Old Loughts had a strong defence that you had to wear down and a line full of forwards that were quite over powering. But first half we had the upper hand.
The second half seemed just to go down hill, Old Loughts were awarded the first short corner of the game and scored a fantastic goal. It went out to the top of the circle and a direct strike went through two of our players and hard into the right corner of our goal under our keeper who went straight down for it (ouch poor Lisa!!). 1-1.
The game progressed and there was another goal for Old Loughts 10 minutes before the end, but was highly disputed by our team. An advantage was played inside our circle Lisa went down to save the ball, it was under her right arm pad, she was hacked at to release the ball (and certainly has the bruises to prove it), an Old Loughts player went down as well, the umpire was still outside the circle and the Loughts player on the ground pushed the ball across the line with her HAND!!! The goal was awarded and four of our players saw her do it, even Loughts were surprised the goal was allowed. Shear disappointment!!!
The game finished soon after with some bad feeling and an unfair loss to us.
The dispute is being dealt with via the divisional representative and the fact that the Old Loughts umpire seemed to stay fairly static and make no attempt to position himself closer to the incident to award the goal fairly is also being discussed.
Team: L,Ballard. S,Revell. R,Goddard. G,Swain. A,Johnson. S,Watkinson. K,Colman L,Sharples. N,Bryant C,Rose. H,Middleton. C,Powell. N,Barker.
Goal Scorers: N,Barker 1
Southend & Benfleet Ladies 2nd XI vs Basildon 3's
Against a wind to challenge even the strongest of umbrella's, and after the goals had been weighted down to stop them blowing over, Southend & Benfleet set out on their first game back after the Christmas break to play a friendly against division 'top-of-the-table' challengers Basildon. The first few minutes of
the game caught everyone off guard and on their first attack Basildon scored. This proved to be the wake-up call that S & B needed and following several attacks and many attempts on goal, Dani Fletcher, positioned
perfectly, picked up on a rebound and hit in the equaliser 15 minutes before half time. Both teams back on the pitch and both eager to win saw much play around the mid-field in the second half (especially from Carly), but with the wind now behind them, S & B had the edge over Basildon and following several unlucky attempts on goal and continued ball feeding from the back from Donna Gibbs and up front from Fiona Regan, Sarah Brooks hit home the deciding goal and the game ended 2-1 to S & B.
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