UNDER 12 MATCH REPORT: LEFC 1 - 6 Chellaston A

Goal: Kieron

Assists: Kirk

Man of the Match: James C (Played out of position at right back for the team and fought for every ball).

Crowd Watch: 11 home supporters (a record for this season! Thank you Kieron’s family)

Thank yous: Andy & Jo (nets), Dominic (lining/transport), Maurice (transport)

The Squad: Tom ‘the cat’ Stanton, Sajid ‘the scyther’ Al Zubayel, Matt ‘Get Back’ Duxbury, Josh ‘bonecruncher’ Elliott, Nass ‘the terminator’ Tourki, Kirk ‘could pass for England’ Walters, Matt ‘relentless’ Harris, Cedrick ‘Usain’ Nattrass, Ahmed ‘Captain’ Aljaf, James ‘determination’ Craig, Kieron ‘the hitman’ Hart, Ryan ‘twinkle toes’ Bancroft and William ‘the bulldozer’ Wilson.

The Under 12’s history making bandwagon hit the buffers of reality on Saturday morning at the Derby Road playing fields. But don’t be deceived by the rather harsh scoreline. For 90% of this match Emmanuel stood toe to toe with Division 1 Chellaston and gave them a good contest. Sadly for us our old mates, defensive naivety and lack of width, came back to haunt us.

Some seriously limp lettuce defending saw us go 3-0 down to our visitors. But the team didn’t lie down and at this point Kirk produced a chipped pass that Paul Gascoigne would have been proud of. (For younger viewers Paul Gascoigne was even better than Beckham and played for England in a World Cup Semi Final – you get to the semi final if you win the quarterfinal). When the pass bounced up in front of Hitman Hart there was only one place the ball was going. Kieron didn’t disappoint. Shortly afterwards Chellaston somehow survived a frantic goal line scramble and before the break they had added a cruel fourth.

For the first 20 minutes of the second half the lads held their own – Ahmed, Josh & Matt H worked their socks off in midfield and Kieron and Ryan are on fire up front. The opposition keeper had to make a couple of smart saves but we generally lacked the football intelligence to be able to create clear cut chances and we always looked vulnerable at the back. A couple of late goals finished things off.

Although we were reasonably competitive there’s a lot we can learn from this game:

We mustn’t turn our backs when defending

We must close down outside (as well as inside) the box

We must get to the bounce of the ball

We must learn how to get the ball into the opposition box from an attacking throw in (Rory Delap is over age so we’ll need another plan)

We must learn to pass the ball wide

Our forwards must learn to stretch the opposition defenders – at times we did the opposition’s defending for them

This Thursday’s training will be a bit different and we’ll see whether we’ve learnt anything when we entertain Belper this Saturday.