Tetbury Town 2 v 0 Kings Stanley
Following last weeks 3-2 win over Brimpscombe & Thrupp Alan had worked with the squad during the two training sessions this past week and was little apprehensive going into this fixture. Westy & Bondy were still away on holiday, Simmo was having a day at the Emerites Stadium watching The Arsenal, Jase was also unavailable and Hally was playing cricket.
Surprisingly Doug then appeared, back from his Mediterranean cruise, he’d docked that morning in Southampton and came straight to the ground, then with less than half an 20 mins to go before kick off and Phil turned up, his cricket match at Shurdington had been washed out. So things were looking a little better now.
Alan had picked the side that was to start; Luce in goal, Basher, Ben & Kev at the back, Ricky & Arron playing wide with Snowy, Tony & Joner in the middle, up top we started with Robbo & Biz. The early signs of this game were not looking great for us, Kings Stanley were sharper than us when closing the ball down, they didn’t dwell on it as we were tending to do, hence they were getting a lot more possession and pushing onto our 18 yard box more than we were doing to theirs.
We defended well though Steve Luce having an excellent game, pulling off some great reflex saves and dominating his box with intelligent calls and movement. Basher was leading by example as always and Ben, Kev and Snowy were getting crucial tackles in when they were needed. It wasn’t all defensive work though we did get at them, Robbo was dropping in deep and helping get some attacking movement going with Joner to try and release Biz who was as usual giving their defenders no rest with his constant movement. On the half hour we won a free kick about 25 yards outside their box, Tony waited until all the movement was settled and rather than pump a high ball into the box he played a very intelligent ball wide to Ricky who drove it hard and low into the Kings Stanley 6 yard box, Biz sneaked in and got a shot on target to make it 1-0. Following the goal we started to play with a lot more confidence and you could see that the players didn’t want half time to come at that point.
HT: 1-0
Doug & Alan made four changes at half time, Ant Wait came on for Luce in goal, off came Biz & Robbo who were replaced up top by Phil & Peggy, Ben came off as he was having respiratory problems to be replaced by Deaksy. The 1-0 lead had given us the confidence to get at Kings Stanley a bit more than we had in the first half. Joner was having another good game in behind the strikers and Peggy was making a nuisances of himself against their two centre half’s. Phil was showing flashes of magic but just couldn’t get his shots away early enough to cause a problem.
After 20 minutes of the second half Doug gave a debut outing to young Guy Halliday coming on wide on the right for Ricky Oakley. The following 25 minutes was an excellent example of good honest local football, two sides getting the ball down and passing their way up and down the field creating numerous chances at either end. It was good entertainment with both defences having to be on their guard as both sets of strikers were getting themselves into goal scoring positions.
The game edged into the last couple of minutes when Hally got the ball in the left hand channel about 30 yards out, he ran towards the box evading a couple of Kings Stanley challenges then flicked the ball inside to the waiting Joner, a lovely touch back to Phil saw the ball sit up nicely and begging to be hit at goal. Hally duly obliged, slamming the ball into the net with his left foot on the volley.
FT: 2-0