By Neil Healy
On what was a B-E-A-tiful sunny Sunday morning, Boots Wednesday lined up with a bare but strong team with only one substitute in Ed. After winning the coin toss, Boots had the sun on their side during the first half which saw real teamwork and determination. With some steady moves and a sharp back line causing the opposition to be offside number of times, Boots took the lead on 30 minutes with a really superb effort by Ian Dean. With Bally battling in the middle of the park he spread the ball out wide to a thrusting Ian who travelled 15 yards with some space and calmly hit a sweet curling lobbed shot up and over the keeper (who was stranded) to add to his ever increasing goal tally.
With the opposition constantly trying to hit a long ball through our defence who were solid, their patience eventually paid off after 43 minutes. A technical foul was given 30+ yards out from goal and with them pushing hard before half time and us not being organised at the back marking our lines, a quick free-kick drifted in and over every Boots player on to a running Beeston player who was unmarked to head in their equaliser.
Despite a positive half time team talk Boots went back to the field still switched off, and after 47 minutes a neat selection of one-two's from the Beeston players saw them take the lead after 'walking through' our team like Moses and the Red sea. At first my thoughts were 'Oh my god, here we go' which in previous games has seen us lose our heads and end up with an ill deserved loss, but not TODAY! Boots continued to battle, switching the ball across the flanks and penetrating their 'Tank' like back lines. On 55 minutes some excellent play down the left flank saw Luke deliver a ball into the 6 yard box where a scrambled lunging of legs saw the ball end up in the back on the net, with Bally ready to pounce if it hadn't, and drew us back to 2-2, and all was now to play for.
For the next 20 minutes Beeston pushed hard for a winner and constantly put pressure on the Boots back line, with Phil in the net (for the injured Neil Healy) having to gather a lot of attempted throughballs and make some tidy saves from corners. Chris Hawrylak (Man of the Match) stepping in at right back swept a lot of these balls out and pegged their pressing wingers out wide helping the back line. Simon then dispossessed the Beeston midfield close to their penalty box, and lay the ball into Ian who ran forward and smartly finished to make it 3-2. In the dying minutes a great cross (from Ed on the right, I think) found Ian on the edge of the 6 yard Box, but his shot was well saved by the Beeston Keeper, which robbed Ian of a hat Trick.
At times it wasn't the most amazing football, but Boots battled hard and worked for each other. If we can keep that up and increase how much football we actually do play together then we will have a good season.
