U15 Whites get off to great start

A new season and a new league made the tension and in trepidation at the start of this game for all the players, management and supporters particularly heightened. But those nerves needn’t have been as intense as the weeks of hard training and preparation paid off for the Forest Glade team.

This game turned out to be a one sided affair with the 4-0 victory, whilst comprehensive, still not wholly indicative of the domination that the Forest Glade team had on this game.

The goal immediately calmed the nerves of both the players and management. It also gave a boost to Andrey’s confidence. Forest now began to dominate the game. Ongar struggled to clear the ball from their own half. Gregg Fedden and Paul Duggins at the centre of the Forest defence for the opening of the game were composed and thoughtful in their distribution when the ball did get through to the Forest defence.

The Forest pressure resulted in a corner on Forest’s right. Tom Pearson swung the ball in with his right foot and the ball was met by David Keen at the far post and bundled into the net. However the referee ruled that the corner had gone out of play and then swung back before being met by David and the goal was ruled out.

The only chances that Ongar came close to creating were from Forest defences mistakes. These are typical beginning of season errors with players challenging for the same ball or a misunderstanding between defenders. Hopefully these errors will be ironed out before the next game.

Jack Hawthorn had been introduced into the defence and Paul was moved to the right side of midfield. Jack was instructed to take control of the ball and drive at the Ongar players from defence. After 30 minutes Jack followed his instructions and broke from the half way line. He dribbled the ball forward at pace and committed the Ongar defence before flicking the ball to Grant Cumming inside the Ongar goal area. Grant shimmied to his right beating the defender and pushed the ball goal wards. When Grant went for the ball he was upended by the Ongar defender and the referee awarded a penalty.

The penalty was cleanly dispatched into the bottom left of the Ongar goal by Jack Hawthorn for a 2-0 lead for Forest.

Forest continued to pressurise and this led to more corners. Again these were supplied superbly by Tom Pearson and came so close to creating the 3^rd goal.

The 2^nd half started as the 1^st had ended. The domination that David Keen and Lewis White were having in the middle of the pitch was causing the Ongar players to become frustrated and this occasionally led to some rash challenges. The roll-on roll-off substitution law had resulted in Matt Huckle and Chris Eggleton starting the 2^nd half and these changes had no change on the style and domination of the Forest Glade play. In the 48^th minute the ball was played to the edge of the Ongar goal area where Paul Duggins just failed to control the ball. Paul did however manage to jag the ball back to David Keen. David then unleashed a superb shot which went straight into the top left corner of the goal for Forest’s 3^rd goal of the game.

Forest continued to create chances. Greg Fedden began to drive forward a number of times from defence before releasing a Forest player. Tom Pearson also stepped inside the Ongar defence to unleash a number of shots that the Ongar keeper saved well from. Jack Hawthorn had a pile driver of a free-kick just go wide and Alex Chapman also let fly from 30 yards just missing the left post.