After the first 30 minutes Boots found themselves 3-0 down to an energetic and strong Priory Celtic side. Boots then woke up and the game got interesting, the defence began to deal with the constant threat that Celtic produced and marshalled by Fletch and Licks limited Celtic to fewer opening (any Celtic did get were flagged offside by Frumpy regardless), Boots began to play football and had a number of chances with Matt going close twice, the first a lovely outside of the foot effort from the edge of the box which went centimetres wide and Luke nearly opening his account for the season as he tried to lift it over the keeper following some good build up play out of midfield.
Half time came with the score at 3-0, Shaz 1 (Ash) left the field to be replaced by Tooby who moved into CB while licks went to RB, Boots picked up where they left off in the first half and with a new found energy and enthusiasm got stuck in and started to cause Celtic a few problems, having realised their CB was a beast and won everything in the air (I assume this feeling is like the one other teams got last season when they played against Subo), the balls were aimed down the channels and Boots started to get more and more into the game, Luke saw a lovely dinked effort just not have enough power to get over the onrushing Celtic keeper, griffin was unlucky with his now trademark corner which hit the bar and just wouldn’t sit for any of the on rushing Boots players and Tooby orbit balled a 30 yard free-kick after good work from Deano and Luke. Finally the breakthrough came on 63, a new long throw talent was unearthed in Matt P and his accurate throw was knocked on by Fletch for Deano to fire into the net. Boots looked to build on this but were quickly pinned back when their fullback was afforded far too much space and he carried it 40 yards unchallenged and played in 1 of the strikers who squared across the 6 yard box for a simple tap in for their striker to complete his hat-trick on 70. Boots didn’t let heads drop though and got a goal back when a clearance down the line from Licks found Bally who left their full back for dead with a number of smart turns before threading it through to Luke, Luke looked up and played the perfect ball across the box for Deano to claim his second goal (if stand-in manager Brett would have paid attention at this point he would have subbed Deano to stop him getting his hat-trick!). The game became tighter after the goal with Celtic retaining possession at the back, Frumpy came on for the injured Simon who’d done his fair share of running around after the Celtic midfielders. With the addition of Frumpy’s running and Boots continuing to play with confidence and put in 100%, a third Boots goal came in the 81st minute when another excellent in-swinging corner from Griffin caused havoc in the Celtic box, Fletch, Bally and Deano all charged their keeper and knocked him out of the way and no-one’s sure who scored but it was given to Bally. (You 3 and whoever else was involved can fight over who gets the goal if you want).
The game finished 4-3 but a lot of positives can be taken from the 60 minutes in which Boots decided to turn up! We kept our heads and battled to the end, we improved and started to listen to each other and there was a lot of encouragement and a significant decrease in the negativity that creeped into our game in those first 30 minutes, and although Celtic missed a fair few chances, Boots were a little unlucky not to get a point out of the game in the end. Encouragement should be taken from the fact I don’t think we’ll have to play many better teams than Celtic this season if any, they were a very good side so to come away with a 4-3 loss isn’t a terrible result, let’s take the positives and move on to next week.
Deano got MoM for a strong performance upfront battling hard against their defence and showing his striking instinct by bagging 2 goals.
