Beautiful Day for The Beautiful Game

It's been a while since we were last in action in the league, so today's friendly against Bedford Town was a chance to have a run-out and for Sandra and Darren to try a few variations in positions.

Before the match, we enjoyed the ceremony of The Changing of the lag-Gard. This year, Sandra seemed to be staging an attempt at the title, but in fact it was Boz who clearly earned the right to be ridiculed for the coming 12 months, or longer if no-one else forgets to set their clock next Spring.

We were also able to admire the curious hybrid line markings. It is perhaps not that unusual to have an athletics track outside a football pitch but to see the lanes running along inside the touchline was rather off-putting to the players, who tended to play on only 3/4 of the pitch until they got really into the match.

Once Boz arrived, we had our referee for the game (thanks Boz !) and we were off, with a slightly delayed start. We were a little low on players, but we did have two goalkeepers in Dominic and Harry. Dominic was in action first and was extremely busy as Bedford Town ran riot in the early part of the game.

There were shots peppering our goal. A great number were saved by a combination of various parts of Dominic, the many defenders, 2 posts and the crossbar. However, we did fall behind fairly quickly, and conceded a second after six minutes.

Harry came into goal after Dominic suffered an injury to his knee. A third goal for Bedford followed on 12 minutes, but now Brickhill were beginning to offer some resistance and were perhaps becoming more used to their new positions.

In fact Angus - playing upfront - pulled a goal back on 19 minutes from a well-deserved Elijah corner.

For the remainder of the half, there was much more purpose from Brickhill. Ewan was very effective, and Fred was causing a lot of problems in the midfield. We managed to hold the half-time score to 3 - 1 down.

The second half was a really solid effort from the whole team. There was battling play in all areas of the pitch. Angus continued to adapt pretty well to his upfront role, whilst David was having a solid match and made a number of vital interventions. Sam C and Josh were also able to apply constant pressure to the oncoming Bedford forwards, preventing them from adding to their goal tally.

Ewan, meanwhile, was excellent and was rewarded with a goal after about 10 minutes of play in the 2nd half.

At only 3 - 2 down, we weren't too sure whether we wanted the whistle to blow to hold the score there, or to keep playing to find an equaliser. That looked possible, but in fact with the last kick of the match the home side finally made pressure pay and added a fourth.

The final score, 4 - 2, was a decent result against 1st division opposition. For large periods of the match we were equal to them. Remembering that they were 3 - 0 ahead after 12 minutes, we effectively won the last 45 minutes by a margin of 2-1.

BEDFORD TOWN 4 - 2 BRICKHILL WANDERERS
(Angus 19min, Ewan, 39min)