Sooty's Bench Talk

Barnt Green Spartak  Bench Talk Saturday 16th October 2004

A warm welcome to the players and officials of Barnt Green Spartak and hope you have an enjoyable afternoon, although I hope you leave with happy memories I will not be disappointed if you leave without the points.

Since our last home game, against Massey Ferguson we have managed to change the luck, which has been against us. The Massey Ferguson game was a big disappointment to everyone following our great performance at Marconi the week before we let ourselves down and did not play against a very ordinary Marconi team. Throughout the team no one performed to anywhere near their potential and as a result we came away having been defeated and taking no positives out of the game.  Instead we also lost Joe Brookes to ankle ligament injury which will see him out of action for at least 5-6 weeks, this is a big blow to the team and to Joe we wish him well in his recovery and hope to see him back soon. 

On Tuesday 6th October we entertained Highgate Utd and ended up losing 2 – 1 after taking the lead.  In truth Highgate were a physical team who were probably on the night to strong for us.  That said we still created at least 7 – 8 clear cut chances most of which fell to Rich Whitehouse who failed to hit the target or produced good saves form the keeper.  We took the lead against the run of play again with the pace of Rich Whitehouse who caused their defence no end of problems, his run ended up with the defender upending Rich and a penalty was awarded.  Mark Delaney took the penalty but this was saved only for Dayle Speed to put the rebound away.  From there on Highgate continued to attack and were it not for the amazing display from our goal keeper Si Williams we could have been on the end of a cricket score. That said we maintained our discipline and managed to go in at half time leading 1 – 0. The second half continued in the same manner with Highgate attacking and us resorting to effective break-aways., We were our own worst enemies if we had taken only a small percentage of the chances we would have got something out of it, in the end they deservedly scored two goals and took the points.

On the Saturday we travelled to play Dudley Sports and on the day England tamed the Dragon we tamed the Yam-Yams!! The game was most definitely a game of two halves with the wind playing a major factor in the result.  The first half Dudley kicked with the wind and battered us but to our credit we defended well and used our luck.  Andy McCord, Neil Tiller and Steve Clements led the back line well, but the first half I am told saw young Jake Harvey star at left wing back. He is clearly not overawed by the step up and looks after himself.  In the middle we also welcomed back his brother Russ Harvey who realised that all his army training does not prepare you well for 90mins of football.  At half time we had clearly frustrated Dudley and came in at 0 – 0, the second half saw a much more disciplined performance and with the advantage of the wind we pushed Dudley back.  

A warm welcome to the players and officials of Barnt Green Spartak and hope you have an enjoyable afternoon, although I hope you leave with happy memories I will not be disappointed if you leave without the points.

Since our last home game, against Massey Ferguson we have managed to change the luck, which has been against us. The Massey Ferguson game was a big disappointment to everyone following our great performance at Marconi the week before we let ourselves down and did not play against a very ordinary Marconi team.  Throughout the team no one performed to anywhere near their potential and as a result we came away having been defeated and taking no positives out of the game.  Instead we also lost Joe Brookes to ankle ligament injury which will see him out of action for at least 5-6 weeks, this is a big blow to the team and to Joe we wish him well in his recovery and hope to see him back soon.

On Tuesday 6th October we entertained Highgate Utd and ended up losing 2 – 1 after taking the lead.  In truth Highgate were a physical team who were probably on the night to strong for us.  That said we still created at least 7 – 8 clear cut chances most of which fell to Rich Whitehouse who failed to hit the target or produced good saves form the keeper.  We took the lead against the run of play again with the pace of Rich Whitehouse who caused their defence no end of problems, his run ended up with the defender upending Rich and a penalty was awarded.  Mark Delaney took the penalty but this was saved only for Dayle Speed to put the rebound away.  From there on Highgate continued to attack and were it not for the amazing display from our goal keeper Si Williams we could have been on the end of a cricket score. That said we maintained our discipline and managed to go in at half time leading 1 – 0. The ]second half continued in the same manner with Highgate attacking and us resorting to effective break-aways., We were our own worst enemies if we had taken only a small percentage of the chances we would have got something out of it, in the end they deservedly scored two goals and took the points.

On the Saturday we travelled to play Dudley Sports and on the day England tamed the Dragon we tamed the Yam-Yams!! The game was most definitely a game of two halves with the wind playing a major factor in the result.  The first half Dudley kicked with the wind and battered us but to our credit we defended well and used our luck.  Andy McCord, Neil Tiller and Steve Clements led the back line well, but the first half I am told saw young Jake Harvey star at left wing back. He is clearly not overawed by the step up and looks after himself.  In the middle we also welcomed back his brother Russ Harvey who realised that all his army training does not prepare you well for 90mins of football.  At half time we had clearly frustrated Dudley and came in at 0 – 0, the second half saw a much more disciplined performance and with the advantage of the wind we pushed Dudley back.

Bob Sutton