Abberley Vale took a little trip to play Hagley Athletic on a day that was more suited to flying a kite! Hagley are currently top of the league so Vale were right to be concerned about what lay in store. The mentality however changed as soon as the whistle blew for kick off as Vale looked much the better side. Vale enjoyed the majority of the early possession with some slick passing between the midfield and attack. This possession was nearly converted within the first ten minutes as with just the keeper to beat Craig ‘messi’ Bridgwater narrowly shot wide.
The Vale side were doing well to take charge of the match as there was the strange view of Gaylo in defence and Silk as linesman and they could have been forgiven to be distracted!
Gaylo and Dave were performing extremely well with good communication and an ever growing understanding between the relatively new centre back pairing of Fez and Az was containing any threat posed by the top of the league side. This all changed when Fez produced a Man of the Match moment...as he was controlling the ball on the edge of his own area the Hagley forward came charging in and went straight through the back of him taking none of the ball. The reaction from fez then came as he tried to thank the Hagley forward for this horrific challenge by trying to clean his boots on the players shirt (I think he was successful). The ref seemed to take a negative view of this and sent off both players. So down to 10 men both teams were and into half time they both went!
The half time team talk was to be honest, a bit of a letdown compared to recent weeks. Bingo Briggsy will hopefully have something better to say come next week. There has been talk of white boards and diagrams ... we shall see!
The second have began as the first half did with the majority of possession belonging to Vale. However the enjoyment didn’t last long as the lone Hagley forward broke through and outpaced Gaylo leaving him one on one with the keeper. Tude came flying off his line and went down to ground only for the ball to skip off his hands and into the path of the forward who slotted the ball home from a narrow angle, 1-0 Hagley.
Vale heads didn’t drop as they came back fighting, taking the ball straight up the other end only to miss a golden opportunity just like in the first half. 10 mins later the Hagley forward managed to break free again and beat 2 Vale defenders and fired into the far corner to make it 2-0, only for Gaylo to scream at the linesman 100% positive he was offside...only for both teams, both sidelines, the linesman AND the referee to burst out laughing and inform him that he infact played him onside by a good 20 yards!
Some positives from this week? – Tude can now kick the ball!
Gaylo proved how much of a dick he really is
Silk comes back from injury to slot into the vacant centre back position
