Welcome to the 2013/2014 season as the Lions start their 6th consecutive season as newly promoted newcomers to Division 1. A new division, a new home pitch but sadly, the same old woes for the Lions as basic errors are ruthlessly punished by a decent Ewell team.
Line-up:
Paige (GK)
Adam (RB), Simon (CB), Matt R (CB), Ollie (LB)
Lee (CM), Matt P (CM), JP (CM)
Nathan (RF), Scott (CF), Kevin (LF)
Our first game of the new season and our second game ever at our new home, West Molesey Rec, where we won so fortuitously against Maypole Mavericks towards the end of last season (they scored two own goals in the last few minutes). After some efficient goal net hanging by Si and the clearing of a mountainous heap of dog excrement from the pitch by some lucky fella(!), we were ready to get stuck into the season.
And that we did with some lovely ball possession from the kick off and good pressure in the first few minutes that resulted in an early free kick just outside the oppo's area. JP floated the free kick in which was headed back across goal by Nathan to be swept in by Scott. It was good to see our all-time top scorer carrying on from where he left off last season, but that was to be as good as it got for the rest of the match.
Lee got booked for one of his trademark tackles then a ball over the top bouncing towards goal caused confusion between Paige and Ollie which resulted in a corner. The ball in caused more havoc in the Lions' defence and Si was unlucky to be penalised by the ref when his attempted clearance spun the ball into his arm from close range. The penalty was well struck past Paige to level things up. We were then exposed down our left to a pinpoint cross that was met with a well-directed header to put us behind with less than a quarter hour played.
Their main striker then scored a couple of good goals, getting past Matt close to the byline and pinging his shot in off the post from a ridiculously tight angle for the first, then lobbing Paige on the half volley with the second. We were coming nowhere near their goal and the good play we'd shown in the first few minutes evaporated.
We rightly got a rocket in the half time team talk from JP and as usual we were much improved in the second half. However, we still never got any shots on goal of any note and although Paige made some good stops to keep things halfway respectable for much of the half, he could do nothing about the fifth goal on their counter-attack.
Not a great start to life in Division 1 and we need to really get our heads in gear and start playing our football if we want to avoid being the whipping boys. But hey, it's only the first game of the season and the only way is up - literally as we're second from bottom at the moment. Early days...
