Otterbourne Football Club First Team Match Reports

Monday 28th December 2009 – Otterbourne 4 Winchester Castle 3

Team: Flood, Kerr A, Willson, Kelly, JJ, Knight, Davies, Cole, Beaser, Milne, Taylor, Youseff, Smyth, Tilly.

This was our first game for two weeks although you wouldn’t have thought so as we totally dominated the opening stages but couldn’t put the ball in the net! Football’s a funny old game and Castle took the lead totally against the run of play when they punted a hopeful ball up the left from our corner, a moment of indecision allowed the Castle forward to go by the defender with ease and then square for the other striker to finish low in the bottom corner.

Again sustained Otterbourne pressure but no clear cut chances and Castle got a second from a good move from their right midfielder who managed to get free, cross into the box which our defence missed and allowed their forward to score again.

We huffed and puffed but could not blow the Castle defence down! Half time came and I asked for us to be patient as we had all the game and our good play could still result in a win for us.
We were on top again at the start of the half and our good play allowed Aaron to slip his defender and slip it under the advancing defender. Gareth Taylor came of due to a chest infection and Youseff replaced him.

Again we went forward and Castle were on the ropes, a good ball into the middle saw Kerr put the defender under pressure and nod the ball past his keeper to make it two all.
But the Otters defence was still in a Christmas mood and allowed them to go in front from a direct ball out to the left and rather than step up we played them on side, they got the cross in and finished well from the right.

This team doesn’t know when it’s beaten, a cross from Youseff saw Knight head firmly at goal but the keeper pulled off a fantastic save. Knight was moved up front as Beaser came off to be replaced by Smyth. Knight was not to be denied and pulled us level after some good work by Aaron allowed Knight to place it wide of the keeper to draw us level.

We forced corner after corned and a delivery from Youseff saw Coley crash a volley towards goal which somehow saw the keeper palm it over then JJ was denied with a very similar drive.

Youseff was injured in making sure Daunter for Castle couldn’t get his shot away so Tilly came on for the last ten minutes.

Liam who was causing problems all day for the Castle defence found Aaron wide on the right, he jinked past a few defenders and with Knight and Tilly screaming for it he went for goal himself and his shot was well blocked, into injury time Knight who had been moved out to the wing was fed the ball by Smyth after a monster challenge in the middle, he went past two defenders and absolutely smashed the ball past the keeper to put us 4 – 3 up! Another couple of minutes were played and we ran out the winners in a very entertaining game.