After not having had a game for over a month our lads were itching to play again, but our only concern was that we may have become a little rusty and we wanted to ensure we did ourselves justice against one of the best teams in our age group.

SSS kicked off and straight away Bassett were snapping at their heels winning the ball and forcing our first corner, this was the start we needed if we were going to compete against this very strong side and it was all Bassett for most of the half. Max and Josh had been asked to work hard and track back and they were doing a great job in not allowing the SSS defence and midfield to settle and with Mitchell sitting in behind them acting as cover and Martin and Scott mopping up anything that did manage to penetrate us we looked well up for this game. The breakthrough came midway into the first half when Max - who was proving a constant problem for the opposition – collected the ball well inside his own half and ran at the SSS players beating several of them before pulling the ball back for Josh to slot home, 1-0. Then with a few minutes left on the clock SSS tried hard to pull one back but we defended excellently with Mitchell, Martin, Scott and Reuben all making important last ditch tackles.

For the second half we brought on Kalum for Max - who had run himself into the ground with a great first half performance - and Kalum soon had SSS panicking as they couldn't keep up with his pace and trickery and the opposing goalkeeper made two great saves when it looked as though he was going to increase Bassett's lead. At this point SSS had a five minute spell of possession but we were always equal to them and Keir, Martin, Mitchell and Reuben were always in control. Then a quick throw by Keir put Kalum in on goal and he raced away from the SSS defence to score Bassett's second and was unlucky not to make it three in the dying seconds with a powerful shot that hit the post, final score 2-0 to Bassett.

We could only play 6-a-side today due to the pitch being so small but we still managed to play some great football. We asked the players to play a tight compact game and not to leave big gaps with the emphasis being on the closing down and tackling and they responded to this excellently ensuring that we were always in control. Every player gave 110% in this game but there were two players in particular contending for today's MOTM award, Max who was outstanding in the first half and Mitchell who dominated the midfield from start to finish in what was one of our best ever displays.

MOTM – Mitchell Terry

Credit: Unknown
Last modified on Monday 21st December 2020 at 18:11