F.A.Premier Reserve League - South
  	at White Hart Lane, Tottenham, N17.
  	Wednesday 11th April 2001, k.o.7pm.
  
           SPURS      V  NOTTINGHAM FOREST
        (White/Blue)     (Red/Red)
 	        4-4-2    4-4-2
  
                 1(1)    1(0)
  
           Ian Walker 1 Barry Roche
       Ian Hillier(C) 2 Matthieu Louis-Jean
            Neil Lacy 3 Keith Foy
          John Piercy 4 Jermaine Jenas
         Ciaran Toner 5 Kevin Dawson
      Paul O'Donoghue 6 Philip Haigh
    Maurizio Consorti 7 Eugen Bopp
         John Jackson 8 Bernard Allou
          Dave McEwan 9 Marlon Harewood
      Yannick Kamanan10 Gareth Williams
  Matthew Etherington11 Niall McNamara
  
       Stephen Kelly 12 Paul Fenton
			(11)85Mins.
         Gavin Kelly 13 Stephen Collis
     Steven Ferguson 14 Craig Westcarr
        (9)7Min.       (6)46Mins.
         Lee Barnard 15
        (7)75Mins. 
         Dean Marney 16
        (11)88Mins.
  Scorers - Ferguson 15, Allou 46
 

Due to late arrangement of this match as well as the malaise due to the cup exit there was only a small crowd present. I was joined by Bruce and Elaine Lewis and Paul Smith in a crowd of around a hundred. The weather was cool and overcast with moisture in the air. Spurs lined up with Toner and O'Donoghue in the middle of the back four with Hillier and Lacy on the outside. Piercy was the creator in midfield with Jackson alongside and Consorti and Etherington playing wide.

Spurs started the half well against a Forest side that looked all at sea. Kamanan was presented with the ball by Roche but only hit a post. McEwan creating a couple of chances with some nice touches for Kamanan and Piercy as well as having a go himself before having to leave with a facial injury. His replacement Ferguson broke through twice within minutes but failed to beat Roche. In the 15th minute he received a ball from Piercy that left him in so much space he looked offside. The defence stopped, but seeing no flag he lifted the ball over the keeper before putting it into the net.

With the visitors making so many mistakes we looked like getting more goals. Unfortunately Forest settled down and started getting in the tackles and closing down quickly and hard(their manager telling his defenders to go through the players), they also started to create chances, not as many as us but enough to cause worries in the crowd. They almost scored in the 40th minute when Williams danced through our defence, but saw his shot turned away by Walker's great save. We still looked the better side but it was not now one way traffic. Within five minutes of the re-start Forest were level when Harewood laid off a long ball to Allou who hit a half volley across Walker. Neither side were putting together many passing moves as the battle in middle field dominated the rest of the game with a number of half chances falling to both sides, which due to bad finishing and good goalkeeping there was no change to the score.

This was a fairly young side, half of the players are from the current U19 squad, and Piercy is not a replacement for Gower which showed with the lack of invention. They worked hard and I am sure the young ones will have learned something.

Ray Lo