The gate reached the junoir oak cup final after winning this top of the table cup tie. our awful pitch and a lack of match practice shouldn't detract from the simple fact that we were just too strong for surbiton in the second half. We tried to play the ball along the floor early in the first half with farley rattling the post with an early effort.
with opposition working hard from the outset to pick up on any loose touches it was clear with the state of the pitch we were going to have to rethink our ball to feet game plan, as we where mad to pay in the 15th minute when a unlucky touch by pidge was pounced upon and within a blink of the eye the oppo where bearing down on goal with matt finn no match for the strength of the big lad upfront who cooly finished past pauly b.
after this mistake the team changed their angle of approach to the more longer ball game somthing which most of the team hate but due to the pitches condition where left with no other option.
doing this helped us make it to the half with a goal deficit and regrouped and made clear of our intentions to pound them with the ball over the top and get back and defend in numbers because of 2 very quick wingers ( hats off to charlie and foxy top effort boys).
going into the second half the boys made an almost instant breakthrough when owen "bentekkers" goodenough bossed 2 of the opponents defenders to the floor before superbly passing the ball to mike before being wipped out, 1-1
the boys took great heart from this goal and sprung to life peppering surbitons defense further until 5 mintues later we took the lead when one of jack duffells legendary long balls was hunted down by owen "the big Welsh forward" who superbly placed the ball into the back of the net past david de gea sending both the team and the abnormaly large home support into dream land.
the boys then defended well over the next 10 minutes until what can only be discribed simply as vollyball dig by mike shaw which resulted in the opposition geting a penalty and a way back into the game.somthing strange then happened when non of the oppo wanted to take the penalty and when the kick taker was finally chosen he was then subjected to banteres comments for finn and pidge which must of had some effect as paul "i only dive to my left" bettesworth superbly tipped the ball round the post for a resulting corner. from this the ball somehow ended up with farley out side the box with 2 players in support against only a single surbiton defender. farley then passed the ball to owen who held off the last defender to sweetly finish once more and extend the lead to 3-1.
arron then had a smashing volley came cannoning back off the bar from all of 25 yards which was very unlucky not to go in.
in the end the defense held firm and we where awesome as a whole. i could not fault our efforts with no subs and fully deserved our place in the final.we await next weeks other semi-final result where we will find out our opponents for the final either double h or afc riegate.
very proud
cup final ties are being ordered aswell as fresh new socks and warm up jumpers for this massive occasion.
auntie pams moment of the match: arron smashing the bar with a supperb volley in the second half
happy meals moment of the match: foxy getting pelted in the face by jack try to clear the ball on the half volley
