March report vs Gorillas 03 29/01/2022 ?? ??
Regent’s Park, home to London Zoo and the Gorillas.
Gorillas were playing the early mind games and opted not to warm up until 20 minutes before kick off which threw off stand in captain Robbie Bradley early on as he decided to place the cones for the small sided game in the most bobbly part of Regent’s Park and have the lads run a half marathon before the game had started. Shortly into the warm up Frishy was either sniped by a man in the trees or tripped on a bobble but this would unfortunately lead to him pulling out early into the first half.
Gorillas won the toss and elected to go with the wind in the first half which meant the lads were under the pump from the get go. Gorillas scored 3 goals with no response from the boys in black and white until a dubious back pass to the keeper was picked up and an indirect free kick was awarded to Kiwi. Goran saw his effort brilliantly saved, not by the keeper but by one of their players. PENALTY Kiwi FC but somehow no red card! Nevertheless Goran the fearless stepped up for the penalty and placed his effort perfectly down the middle to give kiwi some hope.
Ollie then channeled his inner Jamie Vardy and got in behind Gorillas backline and blasted it past the keeper to make it 3-2. The comeback was on!
Unfortunately at this stage Kiwi were forced to play with 10 men due to injuries but the lads battled away and went into the second half at 3-2 and after a strong team talk from the gaffer everyone was up for the fight ahead.
We were optimistic about the second half because we were waiting for the opportunity to play with the wind however, the wind stopped miraculously bang on half time as if it was on a timer so all of our chat about it being a different game in the second half were squashed.
Gorillas hit 2 goals shortly after the half despite best efforts from Blair who displayed his cat like reflexes all game and made one of the saves of the season half way through the second half. Jamie and Josh were being worked hard at the back and continued to stop shots and crosses all game and I’m sure Xavier is going to be having nightmares about that number 7 for years to come. Conor and Robbie were also running tirelessly trying to spark some more life into the game.
Around the 60th minute mark the referee wanted to even up the numbers and decided to join our team and call another penalty to kiwi. Goran stepped up again but unfortunately saw his effort saved by the keeper. Kiwi was offered a route back into the game shortly after when Jamie pollock latched onto a lovely ball in and belted an absolute screamer off his hip and into the bottom corner giving the keeper no chance.
Surely we couldn’t come back again? No, no we couldn’t. Despite our best efforts the game ended 5-3. We may not have won the battle but we will win the war. There were a lot of positives to take out of the game and on a different day the boys would’ve definitely come out on top but that’s football for you.
We’d like to thank the away fans for making the trip up north and wish you all a lovely week. As the great BB would say WE GO AGAIN!
Jevon Williams
