A brilliant battling away performance saw us end with our seventh league victory of the season and our final points tally rise to 22 points. It has been a long and often difficult campaign but our loyal die-hard group of players have stuck together and in the end we began to get the sort of results our neat passing football deserved. This last couple of months has seen a turn in both fortune and attitude as we have been so tough to play against with a regular backline of Tom, Harlie,Luke, Charlie and Dom suddenly looking like a solid unit that came into their own as the season progressed. Today we again looked strong and were only beaten by a well struck freekick that skimmed the underside of the bar to open the scoring. Brackley had a couple of strong players back in their line up and were hoping to finish their own year and possibly their excistence with a last day win. We had other ideas, Sam worked well down the left and rode a strong challenge before finding George with a well weighted pass. George kept his cool to control his shot and just beat the keeper with a neat lob. Harlie and Joe combined on the right to create an opening for Tyler and Ty spotted George in a better spot to tuck in the second and put us ahead before the break. The wind and rain had been driving hard in the first half and both teams did well to play some excellent attacking football. Sam and Ned held their flanks to offer good support to the front runners and Joe and Dan had their work cut out in the middle as the home side had an extra man in midfield whilst keeping a lone striker up top.
The second half began with the home team pushing hard for the equaliser but our defence were having none of it .With Dom now alongside Luke at the back the two big centre halves stood firm against any high balls down the middle.Charlie played his part as well having another fine show between the sticks as Brackley upped the pace. Tom and Harlie both looked comfortable in possesion and it was a great outlet to be able to break out of defence and carry the game back towards the home goal. Our third goal came from a set play. We had benefitted well in Sundays encounter and the boys had all been encouraged to force for corners at every occasion. Ned raced down the right and his run ended with a George corner. Up came the big guns and it was Joe who rose highest to plant a firm header into the back of the net. George was having his best game of the whole season with tough tackling ,brilliant running and tremendous teamplay all round . When he was felled in the area it would have been very deserving if George could have bagged his hat-tick from the spot, but the penalty struck the post and the chance was gone. Coombesy still tried hard to get his third but try as he might he wasn't going home with the match ball. When Brackley finally did make another opportunity it was our future player Ryan Peynton that was denied by Sams great goal-line clearance. Dom blocked another chance and Charlie tipped over as the home side tried their hardest to finish with a flurry but the Royals would not offer up a glimmer of hope to the Jaffas . This result means for the third year running we will finish as the highest placed Banbury side in the WDYFL. Thanks to Mark Nelson for stepping in and giving me a hand at training and on match days and a huge thanks to Mark Young for running the line all season,enjoy the grog. Thanks finally to all of you players and your families for your full support. We will continue to train on wednesday evenings and hopefully we'll organise a lads v dads kickabout. I will look at entering a few tournaments over the summer as we hope to keep all of our players and add just a few more to strengthen our chances for next year.
