U18 Boys League vs Canterbury

Result: 2-0 Win (1-0 halftime)

Match Report by Sam Rowson

Another day another match for the Joergen ball social team. After Will joined the Kent farmers protest and Scott flirted with the opposition’s finest female players, we stepped into the prison cell style changing room for Joergen’s final masterclass of this season. Following the shortest team talk of this season – in a nutshell “We don’t want to drive 2 hours for nothing, so go out and win” – we were ready to take on the hosts in their backyard. Stepping out onto the pitch, Will put on some of the nation’s finest tunes (Downtown abbey) and Taidg went to chat up his ex-coach. DJ Wayne was having none of it however and pulled out his industrial sized speaker, luckily taking over the tunes.

The match started and we decided to test the oppositions short corner routine 4 times in the first few minutes. Some great PCD runs from Scott and KG later, we decided to change the tune on the pitch and go on the offensive ourselves – with varying success initially as both our centre backs were dreaming of the cancelled u18 girls match and passed the ball straight to the oppo forwards. Eventually though the centre back inspired passing found their intended targets and some slick moves from KG led to Jamie rinsing the opposing keeper and putting the ball into the empty goal. 1-0 Southgate
We controlled the match but to keep things interesting and Joergen on his toes, every now and then we decided to mix things up and voluntarily give the ball to the opposition. A fast break led to Scott bodying the Canterbury striker “Ball or man, but never both”-style but luckily the umpires were in a forgiving end of season mood leaving the oppo striker rolling on the floor. Eventually the half time whistle was blown and Joergen could give his last inspirational words of the season (“I love the play but could you please avoid giving me any more grey hairs than what I already have”) whilst DJ Wayne pulled out some more tunes.

Southgate dominated passing and possession with our fullbacks Ethan, David and Kiran (aka KG) posing constant confusion with their click movements in the opposition ranks – one of which leading to Guy launch a rocket over the keeper’s head, unfortunately though also over the goal. Joergen’s “we need to reward us” was heard following a few failed attempts: Ethan decided it was time to take matters into his own hand and show the strikers how to dance through the opposition circle but Leo was having none of it and simply finished off the move by slotting it into the bottom corner. 2-0 Southgate

We mostly dominated the remainder of the match but decided we needed to determine who would have the honour of writing this match report. The Canterbury centre back started launching ariel after ariel, one of which Scott was ready to trap. Probably still dreaming about his flirting in the club house, he decided to dummy the trap, convinced the ball would travel the next 40 yards unharmed and go over the back line. With the Canterbury forward being actually closer to goal and chasing after the ball, I decided I could do much better than Scott in dummying and to clean up the mess in style. Long story short, the Canterbury striker did actually get to the ball before the baseline and I managed to secure the honour of writing this report. A close one to finish the game.

All in all, a good victory to close out the season and as we had our final speech Scott pulled out some champagne and a card. After a signing session in the changing rooms and the card re-presented to Joergen we enjoyed some lovely showers and chips to end the day.

Goal Scorers: Jamie, Leo

Highlights:
Scott flirting
Tractor protest
Clean Sheet
DJ Wayne with the tunes
MoM: KG aka Kiran
DoD: joint effort but let’s not dwell on that ….