Tetbury Town 3 v 2 Brimscombe & Thrupp

Saturday 25th July saw the visit of Brimscombe & Thrupp for our second pre-season friendly. The last time we met was in the Stroud Charity Cup Final played back on May 13th when we came out the victors winning the game on penalties. Since then Brimscombe have gone on to gain promotion from the Northern Senior League and now will play in the Gloucester County League this coming season, we of course wish them good luck in this campaign.

Alan Ward was once again in charge as Doug is still away on his holiday, Alan had 5 players that he would of liked to have played missing from this game. Westy and Bondy were away on holiday, Phil Hall and Deaksey were playing cricket, and then Robbo was ruled out an hour before kick off as Nichola and Alan decided that the ham string injury Robbo had picked up in training on Tuesday was not improved enough to play without the risk of exaggerating the problem and then possibly missing the first few games of the season.

The game kicked off at 2pm with Luce in goal, a back three of Basher, Jase and Kev, in midfield Ricky and Simmo were playing wide, Snowy and Tony in the middle with Joner in the hole behind Peggy and Biz up top. The first 15 minutes was played at a hurried pace until each team found their rhythm and could impose their way of playing the game on the other. Brimscombe were playing a very attacking game, their two strikers were pushing onto the last defender, their wide players were getting a lot of ball in the early stages making if difficult for Ricky and Simmo to get forward at their fullbacks. When we did get possession we looked composed, the ball was being played short and neat and the movement off the ball was intelligent. On 17 minutes following some good defensive work by Basher the ball came to Tony who played an excellent ball through the right channel to Peggy who poked it past the keeper into the bottom right corner. As expected Brimscombe came back strongly and had a real go at us through the midfield, chances came and went for both sides but we were under the biggest spell of pressure in the game so far. We gave away a free kick on the half hour just outside our 18 yard box, we didn’t organise ourselves quick enough the ball was knocked square to the right winger who had an age to pick his target, his clipped cross was headed up and over the stranded Luce who wasn’t happy with the lethargic way we had tried to organise ourselves in this dangerous situation. We got our game together quickly after the equaliser, Joner was relishing his role infront of midfield and finding a good bit of space allowing him to open up the Brimscombe defence and release our strikers where Biz was having a great game. The first half was coming to an end when the ball fell to Joner 25 yards out in a central position, without hesitation and full of confidence in his game now he hit a perfect lob that dipped under the crossbar and saw their keeper ending up stranded and helpless in the back of the net with the ball.

HT: 2-1

Alan made one change at half time, Anthony Wait came on in goal to replace Luce. The game started much as the first half had finished with both sides playing some good football in this highly contested game. Ten minutes in and Alan made a second change bringing on Aaron for Snowy who had had a very good game making some crucial tackles in the midfield. Brimscombe had now started putting some crosses into our box from wide positions which didn’t cause too many problems, Basher and Kev dealing with the aerial threat that their strikers had, but it was such a header on the hour that dropped to their right winger who as with the free kick in the first half had time to pick his target. The ball was bouncing around on the edge of our 6 yard box like a pin ball machine and then ended up over our goal line, a very disappointing equaliser. Before the resulting kick off, Alan brought on Mike Apperley for Jase keeping the shape of the team as a 3-4-1-2. We started to dominate the game a bit more following this setback, Simmo was getting past his man, Ricky was playing with confidence, our defence was strong with Basher and Kev in command of the situation, the midfield was workman like Aaron and Tony were complimenting each other well and getting Joner into the game as much as they could. Biz and Peggy were working tirelessly up front and not giving the Brimscombe defenders and time to settle. Alan gave Ben Payne his debut for Tetbury with 20 minutes to go, he came in alongside Basher at centre half for Kev who had had a great game. With 15 minutes to go on came Raffa for the effervescent Biz who had run his socks off. We were in charge of this game now and were playing with a lot of confidence. In the closing minutes we put together a nice phase of passes that ended up with Raffa taking the ball in a central position then out to his right he got a lovely cross into the box for Peggy to rise and head home for our winner.

A good game, consisting of good football, fair play and good competition between two good sides. Alan was very pleased and no doubt will pass on the report to Doug on his return later this week.

FT: 3-2