Crouch End 5s vs Winchmore Hill 7s
SAL Junior Div 4 North
16 November
Won 2-1 SAL league game
With bad blood already between both teams with regards to a matter a few weeks ago this game really couldn’t of come at a better time, speaking to the captain before hand I wanted us all to move on and remember we came here to play football, so we shook all their hands before kickoff and just wanted our football to do the talking.
Every week I write saying we dominated the game with possession creating chances some might think it’s an over exaggeration but the truth is that we do. But we all just need to improve our final act in the box to take our chances. But this will come in time.
Our pre game talk was just the line up before the game, ‘talk is cheap’ we all knew what needed to be done and the past two weeks have hurt us as we know we are better then what our results have shown.
With new signings Jason Kelele and Troy Tizard-Coghorn playing their first games at home for Winchmore Hill both doing an amazing job in the midfield giving us speed and control along with Dave Vann and Andre Vine giving us experience and power and they looked like a midfield that has played together for a while and not just for the first time against Crouch End.
With only one recognised striker for the game Graeme Gillies got his call to go up front with Eddie Muñoz, with two players who like to play the game quickly and move the ball past the defenders and run in behind we knew we would cause problems and put them on the back foot.
Pressure from the top and forcing them into just clearing the ball forward over our midfield and trying to get it behind our class defenders with no joy, Sean Leahy decided to show them how it’s done. With his head up he hit an easy 50 yard ball over the top to Eddie with the defender miss reading the flight of the ball he took it coming over the top and then playing an assist to Graeme Gillies which he then drove it past the keeper to make it 1-0.
With the wind on our back we kept driving forward and looking for that second goal and it had came with a wonder strike from our new signing Troy, with a thunderbolt of a shot with his right foot which is his weaker foot ripping the back of the net, 2-0 and looked as if we could get more.
Then to make the game even more interesting we gave a penalty away near the end of the 1st half given away by another new signing Jason Kelele, that made it 2-1 at half time. Even though Jason is one of our youngest players, he showed that he has great maturity at his age and came through the game with an amazing 2nd half not giving up on anything and fighting for everything on the pitch being a catalyst for the rest of us.
With no goals in second half it then became a game of keeping the ball and keeping our heads, our full backs Kieron Najada and Charles Bettes bossing their position’s this season getting down the wings to provide support for the team and expressing themselves brilliantly.
Kieron dropping the shoulder around 10 times during the game and getting past his opposing players and Charles showing amazing drag backs on the opposition and forming a nice partnership with Troy Tizard-Cloghorn while bombing down the line on occasions.
Fantastic performance from everyone today showing what we do best in the first half and then showing the right mental strength required in the second half to see the game over the line. Football is so much more fun when you compete on the same level and just to see these players who were getting on the wrong end of results last season being able to enjoy themselves and really express themselves properly is why we play this game.
Have to also say it was amazing to see one of our players (Paul Berrimen) who was not selected today to come to the game and show his support, that means a lot to all of us and this is a squad game and we do this for each other.
“Together we can achieve so much more then on our own.”
Well done to everyone during the game, playing for the team and doing what’s best to get the result.
Man of the match; Everyone, we all played a part