We headed off on a glorious sunny day out to Maidenhead. The lack of drainage meant the pitch resembled a water based astro and we were confident that our superior skills would shine through on such a surface.
Having completed the warm up (which I am sure intimidated the opposition) we started off in shocking state – not passing to each other and generally looking as if we had not played together for several weeks. This culminated, after about 15 mins in a back pass from Caggers to their centre forward who took his time and pushed the ball into our goal. The goal seemed to spur us on and after several terrible efforts in front of their goal Carlos game to the rescue hammered a ball into the roof of their net.
At the half team talk Graham was congratulated for his excellent defensive play and then attention turned to why we were concentrating play on the left. Everyone (apart from the Left wing) conceded that we had played too much on the left and needed to play on our strong side and so Carlos reorganised the team.
The second half started off much better and we continued to apply pressure and this resulted in move from the the three David’s and Caggers which lead to our second goal from Chris. The game was ours for the taking. Then as we were continued to push up the field looking for the winner we lost possession in mid field and they used their numerical advantage on the break to slot one in the back of our net. 2-2
With 15 minutes to go Chris Breese came back on for me. Shortly afterwards following a mix up in defence we let in our third goal. Their fourth goal should have been disallowed for kicking the ball but this was not spotted by the umpires and so it was left to the opposition to own up. They didn’t and so we were down 4-2.
Carlos persevered upfront and got one back but it was not enough. 4-3
Next week the key is to play like we did for the last 15 mins of the first half and first 15 mins of the second half with everyone working for each other and creating space.