6s vs Alexandra Park 10s 09.05.15

The last game of the season for the 6s and it had to be played and it had to be a North London game.  With the bare 11, only 4 of the regular 6s playing and help from present and past members we arrived at White Hart Lane (Community Sports Centre).  Pulled into the car park to find that there were no changing rooms, strip down on side of pitch and had to pay £1.50 for the car park!! As all the team turned up Manager for the day Matt was wondering if Nuno had got the wrong location and was waiting at the actual White Hart Lane stadium!!  Turns out he wasn’t available; think he is scared of crossing the river?

The team was in a dilemma as Alexandra Park 10s only needed a point to get promoted, do we go out and cause them misery or do we lose and not have to travel this far next season, but the team went out and gave it their all.

10 minutes to kick off and there was no ref, luckily there was an Ally Pally member who was a qualified ref to step in who done an excellent job and was fair to both teams.

With some new faces Manager Matt selected the best formation he could a 4 – 5 – 1, with a midfield of a combined age of 138, Angus, Martin and Matt.  Matt won the toss and select that we kick with the wind at our advantage.  We started off well; both teams had a few chances, Matt and Pete nearly getting a goal from corners. The first goal came from them when a shot came in, our keeper parried the ball and their forward followed in the rebound.  We continued to press from the kick off when Ricardo got taken down midway in their half, Matt stepped up to knocked the ball into the box, which ended up going direct and looping over keeper and into the back of the net, yes the usual type of cross come shot that Matt has.  Ricardo pulled up with a hamstring injury and we went down to ten men but held on to go into the second half 1 – 1.

A quick team talk at half time and a bit of deep heat on Ricardo’s hamstring and we started the 2^nd half with the wind against us.  This was a tougher half as legs tired, Alexandra Park attacked us and we had not a lot up top as Ricardo was struggling to move but bravely battled on so we had 11 on the pitch.  They continued to attack and made the score 4 – 1 and as time went on knew that they had the points and promotion was nearing.  We manage to claw another goal back with another Matt Haswell free kick.  Their defender got pulled up for a handball just outside their area, with a four man wall Matt hit a daisy cutter, ball went under the wall and in bottom corner.  This put Matt 2^nd top goal scorer for the 6s; if we played more North London games could have been top goal scorer as Nuno wouldn’t have played that many games and not got as many goals!!

Not long after this the ref blew for full time and Ally Pally 10s got their victory and promotion.  Congratulations to them and thank you for getting promoted so we don’t have to travel to North London next season. We all got changed on the side line, and like the Burchells we didn’t have a shower after the match.

Big thank you goes to all that travelled to North London for the game and Angus and son for travelling from just round the corner.  Men of the match go to Pete and Zou for their determination and battling in defence.