Flamstead End Football Club

Abbey Youth Old Boys  5  -1  Flamstead End

After Matt suffered a serious injury last week, we knew changes were going to have to be made to the team that played the previous week. Unfortunately when we turned up on Sunday we were missing several key players. With Matty and Greg injured, Dean, Ben, Nic, Paul K and Martin away we only had 13 players to choose from. This included myself, both the Bourkes who were not really in a fit state to play, Tom and Lewis making there first appearances this season.

Therefore we started with Chopper in goal, Paz, Gav, Paul Bourke and Lockie across the back. Tom on the right, Dan on the left of midfiled, and three central players of Stef, Dave and Ant, and Nicky upfront by himself. That left us with Kev on the bench with Lewis.

From the kick off we never got into gear, but neither team were really looking like scoring, in fact Abbey Keeper had the most two do with a good save from Stef the best opportunity. That was until about 5 minutes before half time, sloppy defending allowed our opposition to pick up the ball and when it was centre, the forward shot from the edge of the box to open up the scoring for them. They went in at Half time 1-0 up.

The second half kicked off, and was much the same as the first we gave the ball away far to easily, and Abbey double there lead when a shot from distance flew over Choppers head, a third goal again a shot from the edge of the box gave Abbey there third goal.

Changes were made and Kev who had come on at halftime was in no state to continue, so he went in goal and chopper came out on pitch. Kev then found himself picking the ball out the net after a looping cross, see Kev slip as him came too collect, and the ball flew straight over his head as he sat on the floor.

We then started to pass the ball a bit better, and this see Nicky pull one back after Lewis had his shot parried by the keeper. Moment later Nicky found himself clean through with just the keeper to beat, but the defender jumped on his back pulling him down to the floor. A case for a straight red, but the referee decided not to show any colour card at all, a let of for the Abbey defender, who faced the prospect of a fine and suspension had he been sent off.

The resulting free kick see Paz try a shot with the outside of his boot that almost hit the corner flag, and Abbey scored their fifth moments later.

To sum up we missed Matty in goal, I am sure he would have definitely saved the first four goals and given confidence to our defence. We also missed several other players, which would have made the game a lot harder for Abbey Youth OB.

We now have a free week this week, so hopefully this will see players recover from injury and the likes of Dean, Ben etc return from holiday. We do however need to find another keeper, so if anybody knows of anyone please let us know.