Medway Magic played Twydall on Sunday 4th April in the Semi Finals of the Junior Charity Cup which was no doubt going to be one of the hardest fought games of the season. It was very clear what Magic had to do from the start which was, close down early, stop the long balls, win the 50/50s and play the easy ball.
Twydall kicked off and tried to play through Magics Midfield but became a cropper as they were shut down very quickly by the trio of Dan, Joe and Mike. Magic started to control the game by winning the ball through hard tackling and the opposition started to concieve free kicks and corners through their lack of discipline and frustration.
Around the 20th minute Magic had a corner which was cleared by their defence straight to one of thier midfielders who played a ball up to their left winger who was standing on the half way line, the tricky winger then sprinted very fast past the defence and ending up side passing the ball round the keeper. Everyone was frustrated but we couldn't let this get us down and we all knew we just had to keep doing what we had done in the first 20 mins.
It was just past the half hour mark when a through ball (not sure who so let me know) was given to Shenton on the edge of the 18 yard box who shot across the keeper into the right hand side of the goal making it 1-1.
The second half kicked off and Magic started well and so did Twydall, the opponants were also starting to close down very quickly and started piling on pressure with long balls again and Magic started conceding corners and free kicks but defended really well to stop the opposition. Just after 15 mins played when Issa couldn't continue and was replaced with Tel Dixon who came on and got straight into the thick of it by winning headers down our right hand side and Twydall started to give us quite a ot of throw-ins down this side. On about 62 mins a throw in by Rich Enderby to Shenton's feet saw him try to turn the defender to shoot but was unable to so he threaded the ball through to Dan who had made a run throught the defence where he was able to shoot the ball into the goal with his left foot making it 2-1 to the Magic.
From this moment on it was like a full on assault by Twydall and Magic had to defend for their lives and were hanging on but unfortunately with 10 mins to go another long ball was sent into the box where Shenton nudged their striker in the side and the ref gave a penalty. Their striker stepped up to take the penalty by trying to place the ball into the keepers right hand side of the goal but Jack saved the strike and then followed up smothering the ball. Magic then held on for the rest of the game even though some of our players were starting to get cramp and tire a little.
In summary a well played and fought game and undoubtably was one of the best games of the season so far. let's hope we can repeat the performance in the final !
