MATCH 13: After 6 weeks without a league match we were finally off and running again and on our way on a very windy Saturday morning to Victoria Park to play Sirocco Youth. The last game against them saw the spoils shared in a very even match, so we knew we would have to be at our best to get a result against them.
With Matthew Guest out through injury for 3 to 4 weeks a slight reshuffle had to be made with Noah Crenshaw dropping back to midfield and Jack Patterson playing up front. The first half gave us an idea of what we were up against as Sirocco were very physical and our boys were very slow to react even though I would say Sirocco probably edge the first half our boys in defence were superb and you could see Marcus, Jack, Reece and Brandon were in no mood to concede a goal today and Jai in goals handling was also outstanding as he never made a mistake the whole match.
HALF TIME: 0: 0
Half time team talk was a simple one as we were out muscled we told the boys that one goal would decide the match but they would have to go out in the second half and get stuck in and show Sirocco that we can be physical too and that is exactly what happened.
in the first ten minutes we laid siege on the Sirocco goal Matthew Cunningham went through only to see the keeper pull off a fine save then Andrew Graham saw his shot cleared of the line, Stuart Graham had one also cleared of the line and Jack Patterson saw his volley crease the crossbar on the way over, this was the fighting spirit that was missing from the first half. As things were heating up tempers were starting to rise so time for some tactical subs to calm things down Kurtis Barkley came on for the hard working Ryan Hannah and Alex Majury came on for the tired Matthew Cunningham who had run his legs of and had be in a few wars. With only 11 minutes on the clock we again were on the front foot and earned a corner Stuart Graham floated the corner over which was headed clear by the Sirocco defence but jack Patterson crack in a volley which was stopped on the line by the hand of a Sirocco defender, as the ref was about to blow for the penalty Jack Hare who had came up from defence for the corner bundled the ball into the back of the net to put us 1 : 0 up and well deserved as we had the lion share of the chances in the second half. We had our chances in the last ten minutes to double our lead when Marcus Baron went on a run from left back only to see his shot go over the bar and 2 minutes from time Jack Patterson let fly from 30 yards out but it also went over the bar.
FULL TIME: 1: 0 to Ards
Well done boy’s exceptional display of football, grit and determination to get a result now let’s keep it going.
