Buckden began their league campaign on Saturday with the long trip over to Wisbech to face one of their main rivals for promotion this season.
As with most long trips away the squad arrived in separate units with some players beginning their warm up while others were still getting changed. This immediately had an effect on the team and it seemed that their heads were (literally) turned by the Wisbech players in their warm up, instead of concentrating on their own stretches and getting familiarised with the long pitch they were to play on.
The manager made sure that the players were aware that this would be a close game and the team that showed the greater concentration would prevail. Unfortunately straight from KO the ball was gifted back to Wisbech and a pattern of play began to develop with Buckden allowing Wisbech to have the ball and continue to look for the target man up top.
When the boys had possession it was dwelt on and given up too easily with no real penetrative passes played. And when Wisbech scored direct from a corner it seemed as if this wasn’t going to be Buckden’s day.
Ryan Brown pulled his hamstring after 20 minutes and was replaced by Owen “Chopper” Howard who took some time to get into the game but once established displayed his usual combativeness, Wisbech’s 2nd came from another cross into the box not dealt with which Jan saved well but there was no one available to clean up and the unmarked player stabbed in with about 10 mins of the half remaining.
Tim Smith came off at half time with an injured ankle and Dom Smith came on to add a bit more pace and life to the final third.
Everyone was disappointed with the first 45 minutes but the message was we were still better than our opponents but we had to start showing it.
The half started exactly how the previous had ended in a very scrappy game of football with the referee doing his best to be completely ineffective.
There was a ray of light from Buckden though when a good inter change between Dom and his brother Josh saw Dom played in one on one and he finished well into the far top bin.
Chris Dennis then had to come off injured and Timmy came back on to work alongside Adam Westbury providing good cover, Buckden’s tails were up after the equaliser and some good work from Graeme Marks on the left saw the ball flashed across the goal mouth just lacking the final touch.
The game was lost unfortunately after a great tackle by Owen Howard descended into a 20 man brawl with no one being booked and a free kick being awarded to Wisbech (!) the back line was caught cold and the right winger came through to test Jan who parried well but the ball fell back to the winger (via his arm) and he tucked it away.
Buckden toiled for the last 15 minutes but couldn’t get into gear at all and left disappointed with the performance but confident that they were vastly better than the performance shown on the day.
