MIDLAND FOOTBALL COMBINATION FIRST DIVISION

Saturday 9th September 2006

 Kenilworth Town KH 2 v 2 WMPFC

West Midlands Police team;

S.Williams, P.Lee, J.Harvey, K.Bunn, C.Jenkins, M.McDonagh, D.Bates (P.Halfpenny), E.Davidson, P.DeGroot (D.O'Sullivan), T.Smith, D.Ebbutt.    Subs not used  , S.Clements

The match very nearly did not get going as the one goal mouth had been marked out incorrectly, it was some three yards too short, and given Simon’s ability to kick outside the box caused us problems. We agreed that the match should go ahead and given the late arrival of the kit due to traffic congestion the were clear signals that said the game should not have gone ahead.  From our point of view the performance was poor but we should have come away with all three points.

Both teams were clearly lacking confidence but it was the police who eventually opened

The scoring following a couple of half chances, one where Tom Smith making his return would normally finish.  The first goal came from a corner which was allowed to go through a host of players before it fell at the feet of Dan Bates who slotted home his first goal for the club in 23 seasons.

From that point Police started to apply pressure and should have gone onto control the game, instead poor defending allowed the Kenilworth centre forward the chance to weave his way past two defenders before clinically driving the ball into the roof of the net past an exposed Simon Williams.  From this point an unease settled throughout the team and it took some time before Police capitalised on some weak home defending to go back into the lead.  Paul DeGroot chased down the defender near to the goal moth and his pressure allowed him to snatch the ball before going on and driving the ball low past the keeper.

With the score at 2—1 at half time we felt we should have gone on to either secure the score line or increase it.  Instead we continued to labour and not finish off the game.  We started to tire towards the end and inevitably poor defending again exposed us.  A long clearance  fell to Jake Harvey who unfortunately handled.  The resulting free kick allowed a soft cross to go unchallenged and at the back post the unmarked Kenilworth player headed home from 6 yards.

The draw was painful in many ways and certainly two points dropped, particularly as in the last few minutes guilt edged chances fell to Tom Smith and Dan Ebbutt but the finish was not matched by the build up.