Otterbourne Football Club Reserve Team Match Reports

Saturday 8th May 2010 - Paulsgrove Reserves 1 Otterbourne Reserves 2

Line Up: Holdaway, Bunting, Gallant, Allen, Bartlett, Judd, Greenough, Gleeson, Whatley, Gulliver, Abbey subs – Timms, Tilly, Gleeson, Williams, Windsor

A brace of goals not only secured Jamie ‘Robocop’ Whatley this seasons golden boot award it also ensured the mighty Otters Reserves came out winners in the PEHPL Combination Cup Final held at Winchester City’s Stadium. Despite the early 10.30am kick-off, we went straight for the jugular from the off, pinning Paulsgrove back into their own half.

After dominating the opening 20 minutes Otters took the lead when Liam outran their defence on the right, as the keeper came out he crossed for Jamie who at first trod on the ball in front of the open goal before stroking the ball home with his unfavoured right foot.

We continued to press the game with Gully, Liam, Darren and Jamie all troubling the Paulsgrove defence with their pace. On the half-hour Deon produced his first save of the match tipping over a long range shot.

The defence of Phil, Dan, Paul and Dale shut out any threat from Paulsgrove, while Kev, Darren, Jamie and Liam totally outworked and out battled the opposition, while up front the two Steve’s chased and harried their defence.

On 38 minutes Otters went 2 up when Jamie out jumped the defender to head into the bottom corner of the net from Darren’s superb corner. Two minutes later it should have been 3-0 when Liam again burst through on the right only to scuff his shot.

Paulsgrove pushed another player up front at the start of the 2nd half; although they had the lion’s share of the possession they never troubled Deon until the 67 minute when they scored through a crowded area to make it 2-1.

They huffed and puffed but still couldn’t get the equaliser; we did have a scare 10 minutes from time when their forward got away only for Paul to make an excellent last ditch tackle inside the area.

We broke away several times with Gully, Abbs, Darren and Liam all having shots on the Paulsgrove goal.

Although we sat back and invited them onto us possibly due to playing 14 games in 38 days we still ran out deserved winners.

WELL DONE MY WEARY BATTLEHARDEND BOYS