|
Courtesy of:- Ray Lo, and the Spurs List
FA Premier Academy League U-17, Group D
Spurs Lodge, Chigwell, Essex
Saturday 5th October 2002, 11am
SPURS v WATFORD
(White/Blue) (Yellow/Black)
4-4-2 4-4-2
4(1) 2(1)
Nicholas Eyre 1 Liam Tinkler
Phil Ifil 2 Adrian Mariappa
Liam Francis 3 Gary Bunting
Charlie Lee 4 Andrew Chapman
Andrew Hodge 5 Leigh Harrington
Tom Welch 6 Ryan Gilligan
Owen Price 7 Chris Chase
David Hicks(C) 8 Leon Fisher(C)
Michael Malcolm 9 Lee Catchpole
Andrew Barcham 10 Joel Grant
Gareth Jenkins 11 Barney Wood
Charlie Daniels 12 Iain Cliffe
(11)83Min (10)75Min.
Michael Eade 13
Danny Jones 14 Gavin Chatterpaul
Danny Stevens 15 Ricky Clark
Joe North 16 Chris Thurston
Scorers - Grant 6, Barcham 7,70,90, Catchpole 82, Malcolm 84
Booked - none
It was a nice morning with a little wind to keep the temperature down on
an overcast sky that let the sun break through for a while. A good crowd
gathered to see an entertaining game of football from two fairly evenly
matched sides. I was joined by Paul and Greg Smith and saw Andy Porter as
well as spotting Calderwood and Kerslake.
Spurs lined up with Hodges and Welch at the back flanked by Ifil on the
right and Francis on the left. Lee and Hicks played central midfield with
Price on the right and Jenkins on the left. We defended the North end to
our right in the first half and quickly under pressure from the visitors,
mostly down the right due to good work by Chase.
The game swung from end to end as both midfields were pushing forward playing some good youth
football. Both sides had chances before the first goal came from the
Hornets. Chase got past Francis pulling the ball back across the goal for
Grant to slot home at the far post. The lead did not last long when Barcham
got on the end of a left wing cross to score at the far post.
The rest of the half was played mainly in the middle third as the defences came to
grips with each other with the Watford midfield creating the opening for
their strikers and the home sides front pairing bringing the midfield into
attack.
The second half saw the visitors take the game to Spurs from the start
with a couple of cross shots just missing the post. Their defence pushed up
onto the strikers allowing much of the game to be played in the Spurs half.
We held on and with Price beginning to get the ball started to push them
back. Spurs took the lead from a corner following a break down the right by
Price. Price took the kick from the left and Malcom headed it on for
Barcham to poke home in a crowd of players.
Watford continued to push forward and were rewarded with a goal in the 82nd minute. Eyre could only
push out a cross to a Watford player who played in square for Catchpole at
the far post to finish easily. Jimmy Neighbour brought on Daniels for
Jenkins to strengthen the centre and almost immediately it resulted in a
goal. Lee won the ball in the middle and sent Malcolm away with a ball over
the top. Malcolm had time to control the ball before chipping it over the
on-rushing Tinkler to put us in front.
Watford began to lose heart and the home side put them under pressure for the first time. Price was getting the ball and tormenting the fullback with some fancy footwork. Barcham
completed his hat-trick in the closing minutes when he netted from a centre
by Price who had danced down the the right again.
This was a better team performance than the last time I saw them with the
youngsters beginning to find each other with their passes and look around
more. The defence is still shakey, but the midfield worked harder dropping
back to cover more and the front two looked to be helping each other. Price
was very quiet in the first half, not seeing much of the ball, and did not
start to get involved until half way through the second half, showing a lot
of skill which was probably the difference between the two sides.
Next weeks game at Spurs Lodge has the U-19's entertaining Bristol City
kicking off at midday While the U-17's visit Millwall. Before that the
reserves will be playing Watford at Stevenage on monday evening.
Ray
Top of page | Back to Youth Team Fixtures Index
|
