Date	Sunday 24th February 2013
Match	Newmarket Town Youth White v Royston Town Youth Colts
Competition	Cambridge & District Colts League U13 Division A
Result	Won 3-5
Royston Scorers	Jordan 2, Adam, Jonah, Lewis
Man of Match	Keiran (Dominant, resilient, inspirational and creative – Top class!)

Team – George, Jonah, Joe, Kyle, Olly, Jake, Keiran, Tom F, Jordan, Adam, Mick, Tom T, Lewis.

 

We travelled to the home of the current league champions Newmarket Town to try and reverse the result suffered early in the season. We know Newmarket to be a strong team with some good players who play the more direct route and we prepared our boys for this game as best we could. We would be without influential skipper Callum today and he would be a big miss in this challenging match.

 

The weather was very cold – dry and not too blowy and the pitch was in decent condition.

 

We warmed the boys up reminding them of their individual roles today, asking them to win their personal battles and to get the ball forward accurately and quickly to feet, play their exciting style of football to challenge Newmarket’s long ball tactics and to enjoy themselves. We started with five in midfield leaving Mick to do some hard graft upfront on his own, encouraging Adam and Jordan to support him when possible.

 

We started slowly.

 

Before the boys knew it they were two-nil down to two really soft goals. The ball was not being controlled and clearances were not being made. Newmarket pushed on forcing Royston to defend deep and converted their two half chances with glee. 2-0. Keiran had started well and his early positive display seemed to galvanise his team and a surging run forward led to him putting a shot just over the bar. Jordan got in the act by creating some good space for himself but hurried his shot putting it high. Royston were creating chances and forced a series of corners that Keiran put over brilliantly but no-one seized their opportunity to get on the end of them. The midfield trio of Jake, Keiran and Foxy began to get a foothold in this game and full-backs Joe and Jonah were both doing some excellent and fast paced work on the wings to contain their opponents. Kyle and Olly were having to dig deep to cope with two big strikers and whilst easily matching them for pace and strength were at times letting them get behind them too easily. With Royston in the ascendancy we got one back. Some good hold up play by Mick fed a ball forward to Adam who had a lot to do – but with some lightning pace and sheer determination managed to win the race and prodded the ball under the advancing keeper. 2-1. The Newmarket keeper produced a fine double save to deny us the equaliser and up the other end some top quality defending from Olly cleared a goal-mouth scramble. Half-time 2-1 to Newmarket.

 

Despite being down the boys had battled hard. The slack first ten minutes had put us on the back-foot and it had taken some real hard graft and effort to get back into this game. They had created good chances so they knew they were still in this contest.  Joey had to come off with a tight hamstring and Tommy T was now at left back doing the basics right and defending well. Apart from this enforced change we left them as they were and lined them up again.

 

Disaster – once again before the boys settled – a speculative shot from Newmarket was half saved by George and before he could collect the ball the striker pounced and tapped it in. 3-1. The boys now had a mountain to climb. It is testament to this special squad of players that they collectively pulled together to not crumble but to build and build and build momentum for a special second half performance. Good work from Mick set up Jordan but again he shot just over. The impressive Jake won a tackle well and sent it through to Mick who sped up the wing putting over a good cross that eluded everyone. With twenty minutes to go Olly and Kyle were now looking fantastic at the back so we changed things – we went three at the back – pushing Jonah up into attack to support Mick. The game swung. Mick put in another good run up the left, put a low cross over that just went behind Jonah – but fell nicely to Jordan who cut inside and put in a great left foot shot high into the top corner – good goal. 2-3. The boys tails were up and they forced another corner and Keiran swung it in and Olly’s brave and firm header went goal-ward and the alert Jonah helped in on its way. 3-3. What came next was not only unexpected but game winning. The ball was pin-balling around just outside the Newmarket penalty area and one guy produced a piece of individual magic good enough to win any game. Step up super-sub Lewis Mansfield who hit an absolute unstoppable screamer 20 yards high into the goal giving the keeper no chance to move let alone try and stop it. It was totally fantastic mate!!!!!!. We reverted to 4 at the back and Jonah dropped back having done exactly what we had asked of him. The boys continued to defend resolutely with Kyle and Olly now dominant and the icing on the cake came two minutes from the end when Jake found Mick who set up Jordan who powered home his second to secure this thrilling and competitive game. 3-5.

 

We congratulated both teams for such a great game and advert for U13s football.

 

The boys were buzzing knowing they had turned a slow start into a really good performance and victory. It doesn’t get any better than that – you can keep your 22 nils! All the boys played their part today and can be extremely proud of them-selves. We awarded the man of the match to Keiran who was superb today both when we were on the back foot and when we were playing our football – but honestly there were 13 men of the match today.

 

Big win from a big team performance.

 

P13 W11 D0 L2