An Uphill Struggle

Away at St. Joseph's (Luton) today, on a bright but chilly morning. The home side are undefeated in Division 2 of our league, and have a strong reputation as well. It was always likely to be tough.

There was some consternation as to whether we would have enough players, but with Sam, Josh and - finally - Luke showing up, we had 13 out of 15. Then, there was an unusual incident when Angus realised he had forgotten his shorts ! The referee came to the rescue by allowing him to play in his tracksuit. The fallback position was for his dad to put the scissors to work !

On to the match. I had expected a high scoring affair - Brickhill had scored 48 goals in 7 games and St. Joseph's are obviously a strong team. However, the effect was that the two teams somewhat cancelled each other out.

The Luton team had a large possession advantage it seemed - distinctly aided by their playing down the slope in the first half. It was clearly hard work for Brickhill to make progress but they defended staunchly and did create two clear-cut scoring chances - Elijah shot wide when clear on goal, and Luke's cross cut open the defence. However, it was St. Joseph's who finally broke the deadlock in injury time - a ricochet from a corner found the net.

Still, it seemed like with only a one goal deficit, and the advantage of the hill in the second half, that Brickhill could come back. Indeed, they pressed and pressed and made several chances - but the opposition defence was also solid and on at least one occasion the crossbar intervened.

With 20 minutes of the 2nd half gone, Brickhill unfortunately conceded a second goal and this always looked like deciding the match. In fact, St. Joseph's added a third with the last kick of the match. The defeat ends our run in the league cup, but the score flattered the winning side. Their coach commented that it was their hardest match all season. Back to the league next week.

ST. JOSEPH'S 3 - 0 BRICKHILL