Norton V Margaretting SSC – Sunday 8th November 2009
After last weeks weather it was nice to play under some drier conditions over at Melbourne Park this Sunday. The starting line-up was exactly the same as last week and the traditional minutes silence was observed for Remembrance Sunday.
Norton started very strongly and as a team I thought we were very quiet, their centre half had a great chance to score with a free header but put it wide and minutes later Alan came off his line and blocked a shot from the Norton forward.
After about twenty minutes though we began to come back into the game and Grant was making some good runs down the left. Andy Walton then had a good volley well saved by the Norton keeper.
Just as though it looked as if we would turn around goalless at half time though Norton scored when their winger played a one two on the left putting him clean through and the ball deflecting under Alan’s dive.
We came out determined to get an equaliser and nearly did when Ben hit the crossbar with a header; the ball dropped on the line, but was then cleared. Norton then went up the other end and scored again with a clever chip catching Alan out as he had just cleared a pass back to goal.
Far from letting our heads drop though we continued to press, the Norton keeper made a good save from Grant, Eren also had a chance from a corner that he could not keep down. We even reverted to a 3-5-2 formation to try and get back in the game, this left us exposed at the back to the fast running Norton forwards but on the whole the defence coped admirably.
In summary, we battled and competed well again against what is probably the best team in this division, my only criticism is we maybe should have taken some of the chances that came our way as we could well have got something from this game.
Man of the Match is a hard one this week, but I thought Grant Kirkby looked lively throughout the match, so I am going to give it to him.
Reg
