U15 Boys properly announced their arrival in the Red division today with an outstanding performance against reigning league and cup holders St. Albans City West. Filled with a continually growing belief and improvement in their technique, the boys matched their hosts from the outset in all areas and then took a deserved lead when Ifeacho proved just to good; wriggling away from his marker and slamming the ball home.
Confidence surged through the team as Ifeacho turned provider for McGuinness, who, enjoying a superb match, deftly lifted the ball into the City net to take a 2-0 lead. The visitors were stunned and quickly realising that reputations mean nothing, before they were 3-0 behind after Fan's excellent corner delivery was expertly slammed home by McGuinness for his brace; a superb reaction to his manager's promptings prior to the game. Hones made some grenade like tackles, joined in this by the tigerish Makamian while Marshall was far more concentrated in his approach.
No lead is enough against top sides, however, and the Wood provided an opportunity to the City attack by failing to clear the ball properly on multiple occasions; their striker firing in a top quality long range curler that saw the score 3-1 at half time.
Despite the talk of focus at half time and starting fast, the team was mugged at the start of the second half with a horribly amateurish concession that immediately lifted our opponents. However, the boys responded brilliantly again, got back on an even keel then scored a quality 4th goal, with Ifeacho turning his marker once more before streaking through to finish with aplomb.
Thereafter, some of the focus went out the boys' play and tiredness was setting in, but, St. Albans were still limited to pot shots and the game seemed to be heading for a famous Wood win. However, inexplicably, the match official played an inordinate amount of injury time, way in excess of the 80 minute maximum match time for boys of this age. Over this additional 15 minutes or so, St. Albans scored three quick fire goals as a bewildered and exhausted Wood side capitulated, the final score ending 4-5.
Events at the end of the match will be discussed officially but, when all is said and done, the boys took a huge step forward in their development today, totally outplaying a top, established grassroots side and providing a blueprint performance for the future. Also though, valuable lessons have been learned about keeping focus, not counting your chickens before they have hatched and keeping a cool head when others around you are losing theirs, stepping up with leadership in such instances to ensure everything you've worked so hard for is not lost in a instant.
MoM was shared between Ifeacho (who was top quality in everything he did during the game) and Boshjaku, who was a man mountain at the back and enjoyed a simply tremendous match, putting his body on the line again and again for his team, and never grumbling about it even once.
*
U13 Boys came very close to folding last season but, now have 20 fine young men signed up and are ready to do business. Pre-season was a fragmented affair with holidays and other activities meaning pre-season matches were not viable and, as such, the boys are now learning much about positioning and the management team's expectations, as well as getting their fitness levels and sharpness where they need to be to compete.
That's an ongoing process and today's game away against a strong Whetstone side got off to an unwanted start, the Wood conceding 5 goals and scoring just one in return. This goal was a cracker, however, with Kingham-Patrick flighting a superb long range shot underneath the crossbar! Second half saw a much improved performance from the boys with just 2 goals against, the match ending 7-1.
That is parked and history now; much has been learnt by the lads in adversity. The team is raring to go again and motivated for a double training session this week to ensure they fly into the match next week. The example set by today's MoM - Adom - is one to be followed as he works tirelessly on the pitch and both simply and effectively with the ball; well done that young man.
_
Our U13 girls have had a perfect start to the season and hosted last season's 4th placed team - Ruislip Rangers Clarets - today at Pursley. We played Rangers twice last year in the cup and lost both games by the odd goal; they are a very tough and skilful opponent. As such, our girls knew they would need to match Ruislip’s physicality from the off and then try and let their classy football take over.
In an even first half, the girls got the better of Ruislip with a goal from Wood titan Annie; on 10 mins, she was alive and first to react at a corner, letting a snap shot go past the Ranger's keeper to make it 1-0! The lead was fair at the time as the Wood were putting lots of pressure on the Ranger's defensive unit, with Lucy’s runs from deep and skipper Amie’s through balls providing ammo for Imani & Elsie who both played in unfamiliar roles up front today. Imani would extend the Wood’s lead to 2-0 just before half time. Lucy played a ball through which the Ranger's keeper stole from Imani’s foot. Imani’s reactions were lightning quick and she stole it back off the keeper; her jinking and dancing run giving her the space to fire a low hard drive through the crowd and past the diving keeper: 2-0 to the Wood.
The half time team talk was all about the next goal and its importance to the game; whichever way it went would either finish or empower Rangers? It was to fall to Rangers from a dubious penalty decision and they made it 2-1! Rangers smelt blood in the water and played at a frenzied pace trying to snatch the equaliser. The one thing they hadn’t accounted for though was the Wood wall of Annie, Abi and POM Ella! These girls were fantastic and repelled wave after wave of Rangers attacks. We also had our chances to make it 3-1 with Elsinho coming close a couple of times and Theaya almost getting the ball over the line from a corner. Ava worked tirelessly up front and was the link for the team and a focal point for us to play off.
The girls stuck to their task and gave no quarter in an excellent 2-1 home win. We had players missing today with Rosh Hashanah being celebrated by our players and also some niggling injuries. Coaches Dave & Joe, although very happy with the win, knew the girls only played to 70% today. They were not on top form but still managed to get the win; the mark of an excellent team.
_
Meanwhile, our U9 Girls travelled to Hemel to play their first away game against another experienced and talented side. However, our girls showed no fear as they sprinted on to the pitch to do battle, led in this by Captain Emily.
After last week's game, Emily obviously worked very hard as she was in truly outstanding form, leaping around like a human salmon and denying the opposition time and again; so good was her performance that she secured both our PoM and the oppositions!
Ahead of her and helping ably in this defensive rear-guard action, were Sienna and Amber, both very intelligent footballers who organised the marking up and swept forward some fantastic passes from out the back. This released the impressive and determined Juniper to raid down the flank while Leah was bombing forward like a very quick greyhound, whizzing seriously hard shots at the opposition keeper.
Gracie entered the fray and was immediately pole-axed by a painful deflected blast. However, you can't keep a good player down and after a quick rub down with the Wood's magic sponge, she flew back into the action like Queen Boudicca in her prime! Similarly, Amelia was in really focused form, probing the Hemel defence and making some outstanding tackles.
After the match, coach Gareth decided to forego his post match meal at KFC and instead provided a few words to BBC World Service, he said "our girls have been thrown into the deep end with the teams we've faced so far, but, their attitude has been first class and they just keep having a go; this bodes so well for the future. I'm also really pleased with the behaviour of our girls who conducted themselves quite beautifully and are already making everyone at the club very proud indeed. We go into three homes games now and the girls can't wait for this exciting sequence of games to begin!"
Well said Gareth, now go grab yourself a bargain bucket!