Match Report

Our first game of the season was at home at Farnborough OBG, however it was a cup game in the Ashgrove Trophy against Iron Tugboat City, who are in the league above us and last time we met was when they were in our league 2 years ago and we lost 12-0 away and 7-0 at home so we always knew it was going to be a tough match.

So there were one or two absentees but replacements were made so we had a 13 man squad and so the team sheet was read out by Mark Edwards, who is now helping Des out with the fourth team as a coach and as the keeper. The line-up was:

GK: Mark Edwards;
Back four: Mark Friend (RB), Michael Seymour (LB), Todd Arnold and Steve Blanchard (capt.) (CB);
Midfield: Chee-Yong Lee (RM), Jack Howard (LM) Tom Smart and Chris Landy (CM);
Strikers: Josh Walsh and Tony Maillardet

Subs: Danny Evans and Ben Jones

So just before the match Mark Edwards took us through the warm-up making sure we loosened the muscles. As we started the match we were playing well especially for the first 20 minutes. However we weren't really keeping the ball on the floor and most of our attacks for the first half were made by Mark Friend's long throws down the line. Soon after half-way through the first half there was a mistake at the back from Farnborough and Iron Tugboat City took advantage of it and slotted the ball into the bottom corner through the legs of one of the defenders.

So it was 1-0 to Iron Tugboat City and they started to get into the game much more and keep possession, however there was a good effort from about 28 yards by Tony Maillardet which just went past the post. But it was Iron Tugboat City to strike the second goal of the game with about 10 minutes to half-time. Farnborough did hold out till the second half.

At half time the match was still there for Farnborough to make a comeback at 2-0 down, then Des decided to use his two subs at half time and bring on Danny Evans for Jack Howard and Ben Jones on for Chee-Yong Lee.

These decisions seemed to be good decisions from Des but it took a turn for the worse especially defensively as the third goal came with a free header at the back post. Now the Farnborough heads seemed to drop as it seemed to be the killer goal. There was a rare chance that came along for Farnborough as Chris Landy tried to catch the keeper off his line and place and loft the ball into the corner of the net but it just drifted over. At this point the Farnborough defence were playing a very high line and they did get away with it a few times and played it well but then they were caught out trying to play the offside trap too much and were punished as the fourth goal was scored as the striker broke the offside trap to slot past Mark Edwards.

At this point it seemed as though the Farnborough team was playing gung ho tactics as there was a big empty space in the centre of the park and it was 4 on 4 a lot of the times for Iron Tugboat City as the midfielders didn’t track back to help the defence; as a result of this the fifth goal was then scored which was similar to the fourth goal as the Iron Tugboat City player broke the offside trap and scored past Mark.

There were still about 15 minutes to go by now and I think most Farnborough heads was just waiting for the final whistle.

Although there was a chance to grab a consolation goal from Chris Landy after he took the ball down well with his right foot to take it away from the defender and took the shot on his left foot and the keeper was beaten unfortunately so was the post. As it was coming to the end of the game chances were coming thick and fast especially for Iron Tugboat City and it wasn’t long before they did take one of the chances to make it 6-0. Farnborough did manage to hold on for the last few minutes and the final whistle blew and it was a relieved sound to a lot of the players of Farnborough.

This result was a little bit of an improvement to the last time we met. Well done to all the players today though because it was always going to be tough to start the season against a team like Iron Tugboat City and that team train and play together a lot more so it is understandable.