F.A.Premier Reserve League - South
  		at White Hart Lane, Tottenham, N17.
  		Tuesday 24th October 2000, k.o.7pm.
 
      		SPURS        V   LEICESTER CITY
               (White/Blue)     (Blue/White)
    	       	4-4-2            4-4-2
 
    		      6(1)       0(0)
 
  		Ian Walker   1 Simon Royce
  	      Alton Thelwell 2 Stuart Wilson
  	     Anthony Gardner 3 Frank Sinclair
 		 Ledley King 4 Tommy Goodwin
 		Gary Doherty 5 Jonathan Ashton
 	       Luke Young(C) 6 Damien Delaney
 		Ciaran Toner 7 Stefan Oaks
 		Simon Davies 8 Arnie Gunnlaugsson
  	     Yannick Kamanan 9 Lawrie Dudfield
  	     Willem Korsten 10 Trevor Benjamin
  	Matthew Etherington 11 Tim McCann
 
  	         Mark Gower 12 Danny Thomas(3)65Mins.
  		Gavin Kelly 13 Matthew Nurse
  		Ian Hillier 14 Karl Noble(7)67Mins.
 		 Neale Fenn 15 Jonathan Stevenson(10)13mins.
      John Piercy(9)60Mins. 16 Alex Mortimer
 
  Ref. K.Pike 
  Booked - Gardner 65Mins. Tackle from behind
 

On a cool evening with a pitch that appeared to be a little greasy a small crowd of around 300 saw the Dutchman fly and show that he could be the answer to GG's prayers. I met up with Bruce and Elaine Lewis, Paul and Greg Smith and were joined by Ann Haskoll and Andy Porter on what turned out to be a special night for our somewhat under achieving Dutch master.

Spurs lined up as they did last week with only two changes in the side, Walker in goal for Kelly and King replacing Clemence in midfield. The back four of Young and Doherty in the centre with Thelwell and Gardner outside them. King partnered Davies in the middle with Toner continuing on the right and Etherington as usual on the left.

Spurs started the first half where they left off last week and soon had the Foxes goal under pressure with efforts from Korsten, Kamanan and Toner. After six minutes Thelwell sent a long diagonal ball over the defence for Korsten to gather and hit past Royce's left hand into the corner. Spurs had a number of chances to increase the lead including a back header from Delaney that also beat his own keeper. It was not all one way as Walker had to come off his line to gather the ball from advancing Leicester players twice as well as clearing one attack well outside the area. Spurs did concede a number of free kicks around the box as they became complacent due to the control they had. McCann caused Alton some problems down the left but the Spurs defence were not really troubled.

The second half started with Spurs again in second gear with Leicester beginning to come forward more and looking like they could snatch a goal. Kamanan had a knock on his shin during one attack which caused him to pause in the Leicester area, this allowed him to catch a defender on the ball and rob him, but his shot was blocked.

The visitors resistance was finally broken after 60 minutes when Gardner cleared the ball up the line for Matty to slip his marker and run down the line and cross to Korsten in the box. The Dutchman evaded the centre half and took the ball past Royce before netting. We then replaced the limping Kamanan for Piercy who took up position in the inside-right channel allowing Korsten to move more to the left. Leicester also made a couple of changes as they tried to get back some momentum and they got caught pushing forward as Korsten broke free and coolly beat the exposed Royce for his hat-trick in the 76th minute.

This signalled the opening of the flood gates as three minutes later Gardner scored the forth from a half cleared corner, his shot going low into the right corner. A minute later Korsten turned provider when he collected the ball on the left side of the box and centred for Piercy to score easily from the six yard line. Korsten rounded off the scoring with his forth in the 63rd minute. His cleared corner was returned to him by Davies, switching the ball to his left he hit a screamer from the edge of the penalty area into the top of the net past a despairing keeper. Four goals in severn minutes finished off the Foxes. When the fourth official held up the board showing four minutes of stoppage time Bruce called out that we had scored 6 and not 4 which went down well with the happy crowd. As the team left the pitch the crowd gave them a standing ovation to which Luke acknowledged.

After such a good performance last week it was hard to see them doing better. In fact the overall performance was probably not as good as last week, but due to better finishing and Korsten being more committed than previously the scoreline was better. There must be a good chance for Korsten to get more than a minute on Saturday unless GG packs his defence looking for a draw.

The next home match for the reserves will be at St.Albans on the 14th November kick-off 7.30pm. when we entertain Ipswich Town. Like last season after a bad start the Reserves are flying up the table with a young side that is performing better than last season.

Ray