Date	Sunday 29th September 2013
Match	Royston Town Youth Crows v Stevenage Colts
Competition	Royston Crow Youth Football League U13 Division 3
Result	Won 8-3
Royston Scorers	Chris 4, Zack 2, Jack Wilko, Danny

Onto the Heath this weekend for the Crows to meet Stevenage Colts for a league fixture.

 

Crows started with high energy, particularly in the first ten minutes. We had a cross from Dan to Chris who laid off to Dicko which was shot wide. We had two corners both going wide, Dicko assisting Chris from the wing, Chris hitting into the goal 1-0.

A free kick from Dan making the keepers hands, then a second goal from Dicko and Chris again, assisting the scorer to his second goal. 2-0

 

Phew! this has started well!

 

About fifteen minutes into the game Stevenage began to wake up with there Captain hitting a shot that went over the bar. Then they won a free kick which headed wide, but well covered again by our starting keeper James who was looking confident and purposeful in the box.

After our various drives through the midfield and shots at goal, Dicko out form the left wing again assisted Chris to his hat-rick 3-0.

Then from the centre Chris gained possession hit the ball from the left to Dan who packed away a neat shot shot 4-0.

 

Eventually Stevenage's Captain amongst his determination and frustration what can only be described as barged his way through our usually solid midfield and defence and struck a ball over James's head. 4-1.

 

2nd half, it was obvious from the sideline that the opposing teams half time talk consisted of feeding there captain the ball, but I don't think this was apparent to our players.

Time after time he was being fed the ball to carve open our team, shot which was held well by James, shot and goal that took them to 4-2, and then 4-3, the high energy and graft from the first half was quickly being undone by us not watching the balance of play and foiling Stevenage's motives.

 

Have no fear….Crows were made of stronger stuff by just playing the lad out of the game and keeping large amounts of possession, leading to Brad shooting wide which was touched by the goalie getting a hand to the ball. Corner.

When you look back on previous seasons, and perhaps set yourself some aims for the coming year one has always stood out. We never score from set plays and this is something we set out to achieve, having practised so much in training, and talking about having a man edge of the box for the follow up, well this was text book!

Dan took a corner beautifully floated in, Wilko headed the ball which went to the keepers hands, however rather than have a clean catch, scrambled to gain control at which point Zack went charging in and booted in to the back of the net, 5-3.

 

Later on an assist from Dan to Chris lead to another goal 6-3, then shortly after Dicko to Dan 7-3, and shortly before full time Wilko found himself one-on-one with the keeper to shoot through his legs 8-3.

 

Dicko got man of the match for some real creative football and particularly for his assists with fellow team mates, another notable performance was Jake's 'offside handball' which was mentioned in the post match talk to Jake's delight, but taken in jest.

My only concern from this game, is at times both our defence and midfield looked a bit shaky, and had we been facing a team that had more 'stars' we may have seen a different result. Guess what we are working on at training Tuesday, no not that Jake!!

 

Teamsheet: Brad, Wilko, Callum K, Toby, Dicko, Zack, Callum A, Jake, Lewis M, Chris, James, Joseph, Lewis R, Danny.