FA Premier Academy League, Gp.A
         Spurs Lodge, Chigwell, Essex.
       Saturday 16th March 2002, 11am ko

	     SPURS V WATFORD
        (Wite/Blue) (Yellow/Red)
             4-4-2      4-4-2

             0(0)      1(0)

       Shwan Jalal 1 Richard Lee
     Stephen Kelly 2 Cameron Mawer
      Marcel McKie 3 Jack Smith
       Mark Hughes 4 Dominic Blizzard
   Ronnie Henry(C) 5 Nick Williams
   Paul O'Donoghue 6 Jamie Hand
       Dean Marney 7 Gary Cohen
     Walter Thomas 8 Sam Swannell
       John Sutton 9 Jason Norville
      Lee Barnard 10 Elliott Godfrey
       Mario Noto 11 Leon Fisher

     Ben Bowditch 12 Peter Dean
     (4)67Mins.
  Paul Rutherford 13 Chris Chase
      Lee Barnett 14 Joe Hurn
     (8)67 Mins. 
    Nicky Wettner 15
    (11)60Mins. 
      Mark Yeates 16

Scorer - Fisher 14 Mins.

It was a warm sunny morning for a game with most of the victorious Youth cup side playing the bottom team in group B - easy game, no this was just like a traditional spurs game. A small crowd of less than 50 with some of the younger schoolboys watching from the sidelines saw a closely fought game that we did not look like winning. Were our lads tired or not up for it?

Spurs lined up with Henry and O'Donoghue at the back with Kelly on the right and McKie on the left. In midfield we had Hughes, Thomas and Marney with Noto wide on the left. From the start Watford closed down the home side quickly and strongly which stopped any flowing football from our more talented side. I won't take anything away from Watford they played to their strengths and put in a workmanlike perfomance and deserved to win. The game started scrappily and did not get any better, even the goal was scrappy. The hornets had a corner on the right which was headed on at the near post by the lively Norville. Jalal failed to hold the ball and it dropped to Fisher who put it in off his shin.

I kept expecting spurs to wake up and take the game by the scruff of the neck, but nothing happened, just flashes of skill from Noto, Barnard and Marney. Watford almost got a second when Henry's headed interception hit a post. The second half was much like the first with Marney almost beating Lee with a cheeky 25yd. lob before Jalal's airshot allowed Norville to hit high over the bar from less than 10yds. Watford did get the ball in the net from a freekick 20yds. out. Having asked the ref for the 10yds. Hand curled the ball over the wall while the ref was still sorting the wall out.

The frustration began to grow in the home side with both Noto and Barnard being spoken to by the ref. Barnard was getting very worked up leading to a few confrontations. Near the end Henry dived in with studs showing on Mawer in the corner. Despite Holland making three changes they just could not make any headway. They were brought down to earth with a bump after the mid-week performance. They have 3 games left, two of which are against the leaders of groups A and B. The Youth cup is all they have left to play for.

Ray

Editor's note:- Ray has forgotten to mention the miss that Ronnie Henry made in front of goal from about 6 yards when he should have scored. It was one of those days for the under-19s too!