11 September 2004 - Friendly
Weston Green 3 v Darkside 1
Team: Alan, Ben E, Craig, Dan, Emmon, James, Jim, Paul, Phill, Richard, Steve, Stuart, Tim
Goals: Paul / Assists: Dan / MOTM: Richard / MM: Alan

We started our first league game with a strong squad of thirteen, arrived early and everyone was well up for it.

The boss started with a 3-5-2 formation, with six players making their debuts meant a shaky first ten minutes, before we began to get into the game. Both sides were pretty even until the referee (who needed a electric car to keep up with play) gave Weston Green a corner which actually came off their player and resulted in them scoring. We then had the Monkey Moment of the match, when our youngest player Alan, limps off injured with just fifteen minutes of the game gone. However, a quick re-shuffle to a 4-4-2 formation saw us immediately get back into the game with a well worked route one goal from Paul Dixon who beat the ageing, balding, whingeing bloke at the back to rifle home from 12 yards. We then scored our second own goal in three games, when Steve tried to intercept a low cross, which was then met by another injury this time to our top goalscorer Paul Dixon (I told him to stretch properly). We again re-shuffled our pack and kept our good team spirit going to go in at half time 2-1 down.

The 2nd half started a little better, with good build up play from the midfield quartet of Ben, Craig, James and Stuart with Tim and Dan getting into good attacking positions, although not quite getting the rub of the green and Emmon and Paul were at their tantalizing best at the heart of defence. If it was not for a very poor referee, who kept stopping the game every five minutes to talk to Phil, we may have pegged it back, but against the run of play they scored to make it 3-1 and the game ended (10 minutes early) a bit flat.

On the positive side another fine team spirited performance.

Match report by: Stuart