County Cup (away) v Berkhamsted Raiders Youth Reds
W – 5 v 4
Goalscorers – Vicary, Bates, Turner, Coll and Herring
PBU were given a tough away draw to Berkhamsted in the second round of the County Cup which meant another long journey for Mums, Dads, Grandads etc!
The Raiders pitch seemed half the size of the pitch we had played on the day before so we were hoping for a few goals… and we were not disappointed!
After Olly Cooper fell ill over night, Jerome decided to start with the same line-up that had impressed him on the following day.
The match got off to a tight start with both teams having a few chances but it wasn’t long until the Magpies took a 2 goal lead following 2 great strikes from George Bates and Michael Turner from the edge of the area.
The Raiders came back well and started to create a few problems for PBU with some nice through balls that caught our defence square on a few occasions.
Ross made a couple of great saves to keep our lead and made some good punches clearing their dangerous corners.
Unfortunately by half-time we had let our lead slip and the score read 2-2.
Jerome felt he had to keep the team as it was due to the tightness of the match. He also instructed Michael Turner to play a little deeper to help him read the Raiders dangerous through balls.
5 mins in to the second half and following some unfortunate bounces the Magpies found themselves 4-2 down. The boys now had to show some real spirit if they were going to stay in the County Cup.
They did just that. The boys rolled up their sleeves and started to battle. Within the next 10 mins PBU were all square. Rocket nicked his 5th goal in 4 games and Finbar cemented himself as our second top goalscorer with his 3rd in four games.
This was a superb turnaround and something the boss would not have expected 12 months ago.
From here on there was only going to be one winner. Jerome tried Bates on the right and Coll in the middle to see if Bates could get some more luck down the right wing and get Coll to tighten up the middle of midfield.
Bates forced a corner, which was cleverly swung in by Vicary and amazingly headed in by Herring… not sure about Herring, more like a salmon as he rose above the rest of the Raiders to score a superb header with just a couple of minutes to go!
The boys hung in for the win and moved through to the 3rd round, which is the last 64 (No Melissa, we didn’t win the County Cup on Saturday!)
We have now got another difficult draw at home to St Albans Youth on Sunday 12th October at Oakmere School.
Foran - 7
O’Vell – 7.5
McArdle – 8.5
Turner - 8
Pantelli – 7.5
Coll - 7
Bates – 7.5
Hastings (c) - 8
Herring – 8.5
Hellina - 7
Vicary – 7.5
Subs
White - 7
Maddocks - 7
Lambie - 7
Mann – n/a
