Arnold Town U11 Yellow v Gedling Southbank U11
Saturday 7th September saw GSB U11 team travel to Eagle Valley to play their first 9-a-side match.
Preparations were not ideal with two players being taken ill on Friday and one away in London so we traveled with only 10 players.
This was always going to be a big ask against a team we last played in the semi final of the cup last season, where they won on penalties.
The game was played with a strong wind from one end of the pitch to the other. Arnold made the brighter start and deservedly went in front when GSB played the ball across the defence but were tackled to leave Arnold with a clear run on goal.
Just before half time, Arnold extended their lead with a well taken penalty. GSB left a player out wide at a corner with all the space he wanted and when the cross was put in, an Arnold player lobbed the ball over McKensie ‘Macca Pacca’ Withers, our keeper, only for Billy ‘The Salmon’ Housden (who played in goal for half the games last season!) to push the ball out giving the ref with no choice but to give a penalty (We can only thank our lucky stars that we don’t have red cards at U11!)
HALF TIME: Arnold Town 2 Gedling Southbank 0
Gedling started the second half kicking into the wind and facing a massive uphill challenge.
They did manage to pull a goal back through Ben ‘Mozza’ Morris. Carter ‘Pates’ Pateman played a great through ball to James ‘Planty’ Plant who strode through the middle of the Arnold defence only to see his shot hit the post and roll across the line. Mozza did a Lineker and tapped the ball in.
GSB were starting to play a little better now and managed to pull themselves level midway through the half.
James ‘Abbsy’ Abbott had the ball out wide and played it back to Jacob ‘JB’ Burley. JB put a good cross in and Pates tried to bulldozed his way through the defence. He got a shot off only for the keeper to save it but Drew ‘Chappers’ Chapman was on hand to put the rebound away.
The game saw chances come and go for both teams. Arnold hit the crossbar with a long range shot and GSB so nearly crowned an amazing comeback with a late breakaway goal. Chappers was put through the middle, he placed the ball past the outcoming keeper and turned to the GSB supporters to celebrate. The unfortunate thing for him was the ball hit the inside of the post and ended up exactly where he would have been if he had continued his run instead of running off to celebrate!!!! A great learning opportunity for him to learn about following his own shots up!!!!
Final Score: Arnold Town 2 Gedling Southbank 2
Next week sees the team play at CLW against a newly promoted Calverton MW Blue.
One thing that we can say about this league is all the teams are very reasonably matched. All the other 3 games that kicked off this morning ended up 2-2 too! So at lunchtime we were joint top of the league!!!
Man of the Match: Jacob ‘JB’ Burley. JB came to us from Burton Joyce Blue, who had just won Division 1 and the Cup at U9. He lacked confidence in his own ability at times but has shown over recent months that he is a very competent footballer and he played extremely well in defence in the second half which helped us keep a clean sheet and he turned defence into attack very well too. Well Done JB!
