Tetbury Town 1 v 1 Chipping Sodbury Town
The first friendly match took place at Preston Park on Saturday 18th July when the first team took on visitors Chipping Sodbury of the Glos County League. With captain Luke Bedwell, strikers Phil Hall and Tom Deakin unavailable on the day Manager Doug Gray still had a 16 man squad to work with before he left to go on his holiday that morning, first team coach Alan Ward took charge of the squad for the day and must have been pleased with many of the performances.
Chipping Sodbury started the game at a very fast pace, which we struggled to deal with at first. Alan started with a 3-5-2 formation which took some time to gel, the midfield initially struggled to stem the movement and probing of the Sodbury players and on more than one occasion in the first 25 mins we found ourselves out numbered at the back with a couple of clear chances falling to the Sodbury strikers. We found our shape and started to get on top of the game in the last 20 mins of the first half. Bondy, Kev and returnee Westy were dealing with the Sodbury attacks as they now had Snowy getting in some important tackles in front of them and Simmo was getting at his full back and causing a few problems. Tony, Joner and Snowy were now working together and playing the ‘right’ passes rather than the first ones they were seeing. Robbo and Peggy started to get more and more into the game and had the Sodbury defence turning and their keeper had to pull off some good saves in the last 10 mins of the half.
HT: 0-0
Alan made 3 changes at half time, off came the central midfield trio of Tony, Joner & Snowy, and the shape changed to a traditional 4-4-2 with Ricky in central midfield with Aaron Gilbert making his debut along side him. Mike Apperley made a welcome return to the club going in at right back with Bondy and Kev as centre halves and Jason slotting in at left back. Westy moved up to left side of midfield with Simmo staying wide on the right with Peggy and Robbo remaining up top.
The shape looked more balanced against the same 4-4-2 that Sodbury were playing and both sides started the half with some nice pass and move football. Aaron looked lively, always wanting the ball and Robbo was finding a bit more space when dropping in a little deeper to get hold of the ball.
Sodbury opened the scoring with a series of neat passes on the edge of our box resulting in L Gardiner slotting past Steve Luce on the hour. We quickly got back into our stride and quickly created a couple of chances, both falling to Peggy. Alan made another change bringing on Anthony Wait in goal for Luce with 25 mins to go. We were now playing some nice football and looked threatening when moving the ball into wide positions. Westy was constantly joining in on our attacks, and Simmo was also getting deliveries in from the right. Mike Apperley was having an excellent game at left back putting in some important tackles, some intelligent passes and knocking over some excellent deep crosses that were now causing Sodbury some difficulties. It was on such an attack that we got our equaliser. The goal came following some nice possession football from midfield, takeing the ball out wide then back into Peggy to finish the move off on 70 mins. Alan made his last substitution on 75 mins giving another debut to 16 year old Raffa who came on up front for Peggy. Both teams continued to play entertaining football but the game eased its way to the end and a justified 1-1 draw.
It was a good game, very well refereed by James Cox who gave both sides a chance to blow away some cobwebs and gauge fitness levels following 4 weeks of pre-season training.
FT: 1-1