UNDER 16's MATCH REPORT: Spondon Dynamo 4 - 1 LEFC

Emmanuel traveled to champions-elect Spondon in the Derby City League with their own promotion to Division One also secured.  Emmanuel had been the only team to take points off Spondon but with no less than seven key players unavailable the church club knew it would be tough.  Emmanuel began brightly and took a deserved lead as Allard used his pace to latch on to a lovely Walker through-ball and beat the Spondon keeper.  Allard very nearly scored again as he only just failed to finish off an excellent pass from Schad.  However, as the half wore on Spondon began to dominate and they finally equalized just before half-time. The second-half began with Spondon playing with the wind at their backs and they began very strongly but, with Arme, Eccleston and co. in excellent form and Day making three top-class saves, Emmanuel stood firm and indeed, after a while, began to dominate themselves  with Sharp and Sweet particularly influential.  The game at this point was very much on a knife-edge which made it particularly hard that Spondon were then awarded a controversial penalty.  Suddenly Emmanuel were chasing the game and, with Woodward and Lewis ever-more dangerous on the wings and Watkiss adding muscle as an emergency centre-forward for the injured Allard, Emmanuel threw all they had at Spondon; however, in the end, they got caught out at the back as Spondon scored a break-away goal despite a fantastic trade-mark recovery tackle from Riman.  With seconds to go Spondon got a second break-away goal to seal their win.  Emmanuel left the pitch disappointed; however, as not only runners-up in the league but finalists in the cup and just three defeats in 21 games they can be very proud of a fantastic season.   They look forward to an even better campaign next year as u17s.