U11 Brooke Priory Football Festival (A)
Match Report
St Hugh's B Team - D1 L2
With many players away at cross country, a makeshift B team battled hard at this four-team festival. The first game was a bit of an uphill task but we put together some very pleasing, well coordinated passes from time to time. On one occasion George P played carefully out from the back, up the line to Charlie S who whipped in an early cross that William B tucked away into the corner with all the panache of a seasoned striker. This was all the more gratifying as we had worked on crossing and shooting in a recent training session. The second game was more closely fought and our defences stood strong in the face of fierce attacks - Freddie S was calmness personified at the back and Hugo pulled off one or two marvellous saves. Unfortunately the opposition managed to put one away eventually.
We saved our best performance for the last game. Working really hard as a team, we carved out numerous good chances. Ralph scored a trademark long range effort and was unlucky not to get a second after a ferocious half-volley was tipped around the post. George P was tireless in his battling for the ball, judicious in his distribution, and played a captain’s role in geeing up the team when the going got tough.
St Hugh's C Team - L 10-8
The ‘C’ team played a fantastic match against Brooke Priory C team which lasted almost an hour! Despite this the boys never stopped running and were rightly pretty exhausted at the end. Captain Artur won the ‘rock, paper , scissors and elected to kick off. Both teams defended really well in the first half, Jonty was particularly effective playing as sweeper and George G made some excellent saves in goal. The first half ended with Brooke Priory leading 3-0. The second half was much more open and attacking with lots of goals. We deployed the Wimbledon long ball tactic with Harvey hitting high balls over the Brooke Priory players to find Joseph, who had an excellent all-round game, and Josh M unmarked up front (fortunately we were not playing off-side!) Josh scored six goals and Arthur and Harvey added one each to make for an exciting ending. The final score was 10-8. The referee from Brooke Priory said it was the best match he had seen all season!
