Date	Sunday 22nd September 2013
Match	Royston Town Youth Crows v Melbourn Dynamos
Competition	Royston Crow Youth Football League U13 Division 3
Result	Won 4-1
Royston Scorers	David, Jack Dicko, Jake, Danny

Big derby day on Sunday 22nd ……. not in Manchester but on the Roysia field between Crows and Melbourn Dynamos!

 

Always one to get the fire in the belly going for the lads, being our closest rivals.

 

On our two meetings last season both games were concluded in the closing minutes of the game, Melbourn beating us in the first game of the season and Crows getting a cheeky goal in the second fixture.

 

When turning up for the game we asked ourselves, have we progressed and moved the team forward from last season?

 

In the first ten minutes of the game we appeared to be a little slow to start and being a bit slack on ball control, and perhaps allowing it to get away a bit too too easy. To be fair the day had turned out to be a bit hotter than expected.

 

In his first game for Crows since dual-signing, Jamie picked up a loose ball and put it through to David at about head height, the ball landed with a bounce allowing David to hit a perfectly timed lob over the keeper, GOAL!

 

1st goal for newly signed David and a real confidence booster for him. Jamie five minutes later was denied by the cross bar with a header.

 

George had a great game proving his worth in the midfield, doing everything you could possibly expect, holding up the ball, making driving runs, accurate passes and some vital tackles.

 

In all he managed five attempts on goal, some wide, denied by the post and keeper. For the reasons mentioned above he was awarded man of the match.

 

Our Captain, Chris, made one of his signature strong runs down the right wing, of which a nicely hit cross was launched to allow Dicko to tap in. GOAL!

 

Josh had a stint as striker and made some good runs with Jake only to be denied by Melbourn defence.

The next goal was quite rewarding, as we have been talking about this for a long time with the lads, scoring a goal from someone following up on a shot. Chris again put in a lovely cross from the right, took a bounce then George hit it hard at the goal, the keeper pushed the ball away with open hands rather than catching allowing Jake to pick up the loose ball and planted it in the back of the net (having listened to his coaches of course) GOAL!

 

It felt like only a minute after the centre kick, Dan sprung into action driving through the Melbourn midfield and defence to score his first league goal for Crows, GOAL!

 

From reading this it sounds like we had all the possession, and perhaps it could be said that we could have had a further lead considering the chances we had. But Melbourn had put up a fight, rocking our defence on a number of occasions with Bradley picking up the loose balls to knock back into play.The fight had left our defence feeling a bit tired.

 

At about 15 minutes until full time the Melbourn winger made a run at goal taking Joseph by surprise, the ball passed between his legs for the player to hit at close range and beat Bradley. 4-1 Royston

 

With quite a comfortable lead we looked to move some players around to different positions. Toby up front made an impression receiving a header from a corner kick on the back post only to go wide.

 

From the goal kick Melbourn again managed to surge into the box, only to shoot over the bar. At 3 minutes left Melbourn won a corner which was pushing towards goal, but was convincingly headed away by Wilko, then picked up by Melbourn for another shot that went wide of goal.

 

All in all a convincing win, and good to see some of the plans coming together that we have practised in training, kick offs, set plays and so on to make the team look more professional.

 

Still a work in progress and a few quirky habits that need challenging.

 

So back to the earlier question, have we progressed and moved the team forward?

It was a good win but it's too early to say!!!

 

Team sheet

Brad, Wilko, Dicko, Danny, Jamie, George, Josh, Zack, Joseph, Jake, Callum A, Toby, Lewis M, Chris.