2nd April Men's 7th

Things didn’t look good with Chapeltown looking more strengthened than we were.
They put us under a lot of pressure early on and scored when a goal bound shot was saved by someone’s other than Lewis Birch’s foot and the resultant penalty stoke was well converted.
Five minutes later they doubled their lead with a shot from the top of the D after a short corner had initially been cleared and things didn’t look good. We started to bring ourselves into the game and created some opportunities and one brilliant ball from Nick Bettles from a free hit just eluded a deflection yours truly . We pushed our forwards high and one well developed move created a chance for Freddie Davies who picked up the ball and beat three players at pace and took it round the goalkeeper to reduce the deficit at half time.
We continued to grow into the game and some great move down the right created a chance which Freddie put away . Our forward line were putting them under pressure and another move down the right with a breakaway from Matt Carter starting in our 22 created another chance which Freddie put away off the cross bar for his hat trick. Chapeltown pushed for the equaliser and put our defence under pressure which they coped with well and anything that did get past was well dealt with by Lewis. It was not one way traffic and we made some good penetrative moves down both sides and a ball from Kai to Joe was well controlled and a great pass found Eddie who calmly controlled and despatched into the net to double our lead. We kept control for the last ten minutes allowing then just one chance which was well saved by Lewis.
Like last week it was an outstanding team performance with quite a few players having their best game of the season . Wasim and Amhad played really well at the back as did Mark Beavis making his one and only appearance of the season. Matt Carter was outstanding on the right of defence and Denholm Dott had a great game on the left of defence. In midfield Nick had his best game of the season with some great passes particularly to Eddie down the right. Tom Cooper and Mark Cuff got through a lot of work controlling their strength in the middle and Joe Highland gets better every game with good defensive and attacking work. The young forward line, at least ¾ of them , played well with Freddie Davies taking his goals really well. Eddie continues to grow in confidence and made some really good pick up and runs down the right as well as scoring his goal and Kai Haste Wain playing mainly in a new wide left role interchanged well with the others and Joe and was unlucky not to be on the scoresheet. The missing forward link who took the average age to 30 was yours truly who was able to prompt some of the moves and create space for others but generally observed with admiration their great performance.
Two good wins to complete the season and mid table respectability which didn’t look likely earlier in the season. Ironically this was our only game at Abbeydale this year with other home games at Sport Park , Westfield and last week at Chesterfield!!