Match Report by James Rushton
RESULT – SOUTHGATE 1 – 5 HAM & WEST SPANIARDS
It was my first time playing in Highgate against H&W rather than at Paddington recreation fields. This is the older … sorry more experienced of the two H&W teams in our league and is always a good game although they always field a strong team against us.
We were down to 12 players by Saturday morning although welcomed a guest appearance from Kabir Bowry on his return from injury. Setting up in our 4 4 2 albeit with some new faces the game opened competitively with play fairly balanced between the teams …. However a pattern began to emerge that remained throughout the game. We began to make errors from time to time … whether it was failing to clear the ball cleanly from defence or turning over the ball in midfield and giving H&W clear runs at goal. And sure enough they took the lead and followed up quite quickly with a second. An individual piece of skill from kabir won us a penalty flick which Luke Maher converted from the spot … I was told this was his first penalty flick in a match ! So briefly back to 2 – 1, we were competing again. Until the pattern continued and although it felt much closer than the final score … we kept giving H&W opportunities and shots at the top of the D. Even at this level they were clinical if given the opportunity and we simply have to mark much closer in our own half and cannot leave them unmarked in goal as they scored 3 more to win comfortably 5 to 1.
This was another good game and in many ways we compete with the final score not fairly reflecting the game. However we are consistently giving the opposition too many chances without them being so charitable to us. We remain third from bottom and will be in the relegation battle for the rest of the season. We have some key games coming up against the teams around us from which we really need to take some results!
