Men's 5th XI Vs Wolves & Tett 4

The first half of this match had a similar pattern throughout: Possession with Telford, counter from the opposition, opposition short corner and repeat. When I say repeat, I mean I don’t have enough hands to count how many short corners the opposition had. However the opposition could not score. Why? Alex. What did he do? He was here, there and everywhere. Making saves left, right, high, low and commanding the defence. Without Alex the first half would’ve been very different.

Enough of the opposition’s danger, let’s talk about ours. Or more accurately, Coler. On the back of his clinical performance from the previous week, Coler had been given one target before the match - Do it again.

Coler leading the line and Alan Brannen supporting from the top of the midfield. These two had a superb link up, finding one another just when you thought they had no space left. And that’s what happened halfway through the first half, Alan slips the ball through to Coler and Coler smashes it past the keeper to make it 1-0.

The end of the first half came and it felt like a whole match had played out. Everyone had worked hard to ensure that we didn’t let them score. Alan Bain took that to another level when he stopped the ball on the line from the oppositions short corner shot that finally managed to get past Alex! Big shoutout to John Higginson’s work ethic as he closed down every opponent and made sure they knew he was there, to then snatch the ball and regain possession.

During the half time talk, the team understood that we had to keep the resilience in defence and ensure that not only we win but we also keep a clean sheet.

2nd half began, and much like the 1st Telford had possession of the ball, using the width of the pitch to stretch the defence. This is where John Keeble & Alan Bain, from central defence, found Ewan moving between the channels in attack. Here lots of opportunities were made, short corners gained and eventually Coler decided enough was enough, he wanted another raid … of fantasy points! 

Another goal for Coler after the ball fell to him after a deflection off a defender and was hit above the keeper. That’s 4 goals in 2 games! 2 goals in back-to-back matches!

The passion from the team then grew and we wanted more! Maybe too much … After a tackle was made in our half, the ball then found itself to Seth who then sprinted 10/15 yards before the umpire blew their whistle and brought the play back to where the tackle (foul) had been. Frustrated with the distance he had ran, Seth hit the ball across the pitch and the umpire sent him off with a green card.

At that moment the game changed. The opposition threw players forward, even more so at their next 2 short corners. There were 3 main differences in these 2short corners compared to all of theirs in the first half:

1. After the sending off, the opposition clearly felt an opportunity and momentum was on their side.
2. During these short corners the injector “feinted” their pass and both John Keeble & John Higginson stepped forward after the “bait”. 
3. Despite the feeling in unfairness, we were then left with 3 players and the keeper to stop this short corner.

I think we all know where this is going … they scored on their 2nd short corner. However with this, the team still moved forward and knew we had to take control of the match.

However that unfortunately didn’t happen. Momentum hadn’t swung back in our favour and we also felt on the back foot. With no more than 5 minutes to go the opposition had an attack, against the run of play and found the ball scrambling in the D, before eventually finding itself to the unmarked late run by their left midfielder who pushed it into the goal.

And the final whistle was blown. Despite the game feeling like a loss, a draw was likely a fair result as both teams had lots of opportunities to score but both keepers played well.

On the note of keepers. It’s not very often you concede 2 goals and your keeper gets M.O.M but let me just say that I have never seen a keeper have such a good performance as Alex did. His save total was well into the double digits, these being made with him rushing out, composed on the line and even diving and punching the ball clear of goal.

Result:

2-2 Draw

Scorers:

Ian Cole x 2

Assists:

Alan Brannen x1

M.O.M:

Alex Ward