FA Academy League South
    Spurs Lodge, Chigwell, Essex
    1st October 2005, ko 12.04pm

       SPURS     V    BIRMINGHAM CITY
   (White/Blue)       (Blue/White)
       4-5-1          4-4-2

       2(1)           0(0)

   David Button  1 Andrew Bagnall
    Chris Riley  2 Michael Howell
     Joe Martin  3 Darren Campion
  Matthew Wells  4 Lewis Green
  Leigh Mills(C) 5 James Blake
      Henville   6 Mark Hall
  Simon Dawkins  7 Jared Wilson
   Stuart Lewis  8 Ryan Burge
   Radwan Hamed  9 James McPike
Jacques Maghoma 10 Brett Hinks(C)
  Claude Seanla 11 Jamie Price

     Alex Smith 12 Oliver Harthill
                   (11)57 Mins.
 Tommy Forecast 13 Jake Meredith
 Richard Heller 14 Stefan De Las
  (7)82 Mins.      (8)75 Mins.
  Cian Hughton  15 Craig Davies
  (2)75 Mins.      (3)39 Mins.
     Greg Lake  16

Scorers:- Lewis 19, Hamed 64

No bookings

Ref - Rob Ellis
Asst Refs - David Cross(Yellow), Kevin Lowe(Checkered)

It was a day of mixed weather as the cold wind gusting at the start allowed brief shafts of warm sunlight to keep the sparse crowd happy with a little drop of rain near the end. My thanks to a man in black for the teams as there was no team sheet as usual.

Spurs lined up with the tall Archibald-Henville alongside captain Mills at the heart of the back line. Outside of them on the right was Riley with Martin on the left. The midfield anchor role was taken by the ever improving Wells flanked by Lewis and Maghoma in the centre with strikers Dawkins on the right and Seanla on the left supporting Hamed up front.

Spurs kicked off attacking the South goal and soon had the visitors' defence under pressure. Both Maghoma and Lewis driving forward with Dawkins coming inside from the right and Seanla lurking out on the left as the target for long diagonals caused the Blues all sorts of problems as Dawkins and Hamed both fired wide and Seanla headed over early on. For all the attempts Bagnall did not have too much to save.

The Birmingham midfield worked hard to close down the Spurs midfield as did the front two which caused a few hearts to flutter when they caught defenders dwelling on the ball. Their right sided midfielder Price had long blond hair tied in a ponytail and was as aggressive as former blues player Savage. We thought that he could have been his love child!

Spurs took the lead when following a free kick the ball was only cleared to Lewis whose long range effort took a deflection on its way into the bottom left of the net. Both sides kept getting stuck in with most of the play in the visitors' end with Dawkins having another couple of efforts and even Mills had a chance from a corner.

The second half continued in much the same way as the first with most of the substitutions being due as a result of tackling.

Archibald- Henville got a knock following a goal-line scramble and was replaced by Lake. The replacements for Birmingham seemed to have made them stronger as they began to create more chances and it was not until we got a second that we could be sure of taking the points.

Hamed's run into the box from the right was stopped by Davies' tackle from behind which the Ref decided was illegal and pointed to the spot despite plenty of protests from the visitors. Hamed slotted home the penalty low to the keepers left. Not long after another Davies tackle stopped Dawkins run into the box which led to Simon having to go off and be replaced by Heller who provided extra pace on the right.

Before that, Chris Hughton's son Cian replaced Riley at right back where he did okay. The visitors actually looked more dangerous towards the end of the game, but good work from the defence kept them out and we continued to look like getting another with breaks from defence.

We continue to get better at home as the youngsters gel with their passing and knowing where team-mates will be. The away form is bad with another defeat at Cardiff so still room for improvement.

Next week they have another home game against Bristol city which is another 12am kick-off. Clive Allen had a look at the lads while preparing his reserves for their game at the Valley on Monday.

Ray Lo

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