Well, today was not our finest hour (or, 70 minutes, if you wish to be precise). Those of feint heart should probably stop reading here as I am not able to sugar coat this one....
We passed the ball very well for the first 10 minutes and looked like we may pick up where we left off in the second half of last week’s game. That bright start was undone on the 10th minute, however, when a pretty decent clearance from Matty was lumped diagonally across by the Beckwithshaw defender. After being allowed to bounce far too many times the opposing striker got in behind our defence and shot a volley between PJ’s outstretched arms and the crossbar. 1-0.
The Pannal boys settled down after the goal and continued to dominate possession for the next 7 minutes, the 8th yielded a further goal for Beckwithshaw however and the floodgates truly opened. The second goal came from a corner, pretty good header but we may have expected our near post to be better covered. I told the boys they could have that goal though, as it was a very well timed and powerful header. The next 7 goals conceded; I could not be so kind about. These come direct from the notes I was taking during the game on my phone (not texting people, as my “better” half accused me of!)
20” - Shot across goal, hits bar, comes out to Beckwithshaw striker unmarked at back post, tap in, 3-0
25” - Poor clearance to edge of box. They scored in top corner
30” – Poor marking, Beckwithshaw strike, goes under keeper
36” - OUR GOAL!!!! Ben direct from the corner
55” - Corner cleared poorly to striker on edge of box. Decent first time strike. 6-1
58” – Good save, ball spilt, attacker beats keeper and defender to ball, pulled back to edge of box, finished
63” - Corner cleared poorly, hit post, bounced out to striker, goal
65” – Scramble, poor clearance, volley, goal
68” – OUR GOAL!!!! Foster to Ledge. Long run with ball. Beat keeper at near post
Now, I will say some good things. Firstly, I asked for the boys to respond at half time and make a good show of themselves in the second half. Which to their credit, they did. Seb was clearly fired up for the second half and his attitude rubbed off on some of his colleagues. Ben Wilson stood out and really gave the Beckwithshaw midfield the run around at times.
I shall not share the contents of our half-time and full-time team talks but I will tell you this....the Pannal Ash U13 Blues will play better than this. They were big enough to hold their hands up and accept responsibility for what was a very disappointing performance today and they have my respect for that. We must remember that this is a new team with a lot of players, it will take time to get things exactly as we want them but one thing is for sure, there are a lot of talented footballers in this group that are hungry to improve. You can’t buy that.
