Westwood Park Football Club

Yellow division v Widmer End; Sunday 3rd March

Yellow division v Widmer End

Team. Adam, Antonio, Arjan, Alex J, Charlie, Elijah, Fionn, Gabriel, Kaushal,
Matthew.

1st game.
Kaushal; Charlie and Arjan; Elijah Adam Alex J; Matthew

It was an early start for the boys but they looked like they really wanted to play. It was really good to see them start with such confidence and in no time at all they were commanding the game. Elijah was comfortable between Charlie and Arjan in defence and together they created a solid back wall for the forwards to push up. Alex pushed hard and wide on the left and forced our first corner. Matthew quickly played it short and managed a scramble in their goal mouth with Adam trying to get a shot in. Widmer’s clearances weren’t good and we managed to keep the pressure up in their half. Even when they did reach our half the defence was so solid they couldn’t advance and we picked the ball out nicely with Charlie and Arjan in control, dribbling and passing up field pushing the game forward. Charlie made one really long pass through the Widmer forwards up to Mathew who turned and ran with the ball but just went past the post. Time and again the boys moved the ball wide on the wings bringing the opposition out and creating space in the middle to pass to Matthew. It was a pleasure to watch how well they played.

Second half
Charlie Matthew Adam were substituted; Fionn Antonio and Gabriel coming on

This half lost its tempo a bit but they still played well with Fionn trying really hard. We had a couple of runs on goal but as the game went on we started
to play really deep and Kaushal had a lot to do to keep the ball out. Then from our goal area the ball was thrown to our player on the edge of the box, it was
held at his feet for an eternity in a dangerous position, the opposition seized their chance as two players came in and managed to win the ball and score a
goal. It was so deflating after playing so well but hopefully a hard lesson learnt.

2nd game.
Antonio; Fionn Gabriel Adam; Charlie Matthew; Kaushal

Antonio was so good in goal at training on Saturday he put on the gloves for us again today. This was a harder game and the boys started to play deep straight
away. Gabriel was strong on the left and did well with his fast runs. We couldn’t keep the ball up front though and suddenly found ourselves too
stretched at the back and on the retreat to be hit with a goal. We were losing focus on the pitch and it was all play in our half for another goal against us.
We had a couple of breaks and one enormous shot from Charlie at the half way line that went wide.

We had to pick ourselves up for the second half and with Charlie and Arjan in defence again and Gabriel centre the team looked in better shape. With Alex back
on the right midfield and Mathew up front we seemed to be more comfortable and we started to push again. Alex brought his long runs into play again and I asked
Gabriel to run the centre hard and push forward and he did just that with Matthew in support. We kept the pressure on and with everyone pushing up and a good pass
to Gabriel in the goal area he managed to go past a defender and score. We started taking the game to them again and looked really strong with another goal
in our sights and with all the play in their half but time was against us and the whistle was blown for full time.

If the boys played like they did in the first half of the first game I’m sure the results would be very different. That said it was so encouraging to see them play like a team, focused and working hard, it just shows what they can really do when they try.

Great effort well done.

Martin and Ian