| Match Report |
A disappointing start to the campaign. Yardley Badgers were forced to cancel the opening fixture due to a combination of Eid and the 10:00am start time offered by Leamington.
We always new Olton would be a tough proposition as National league opponents who hadn’t lost a Badgers game in 5 years or so. The Badgers were poor in the 1st half allowing Olton to score 2 easy goals with a basic hit from the back to a quick player up front who scored unchallenged. Not much was going right for Yardley with no proper attempts on goal and unable to retain the ball in the final third. We ran the ball into players particularly the older players at the back. We know how to go round these players and discuss this week in and week out so to commit so many errors in the 1st period was very disappointing. The Yardley crowd were not impressed and rightly so with much mumbling and muttering. The Olton crowd loved every minute of it.
Something of a stirring half time team talk led to us being 3-0 down in less than 2 minutes of the restart with the same move that had cost us 2 goals in the 1st period! However, from this point we seemed to grab the basic idea somebody should mark this player and try to run with him (which surprisingly kept him a lot quieter). Yardley started to have dominant periods in the game but try as we did we couldn’t find a goal. Even when the adults were both off the pitch we couldn’t find a way through, we dropped Jeavon onto the pitch but alas no goals. This was our target to score and hopefully score more than the opposition but more composure is required in front of goal. The fourth goal came about because we had the chance to tackle in the D but stood off the ball and this allowed the attacker to score into the corner, again disappointing as player for player Olton were no better than us just more committed on the day.
All was not doom and gloom despite the result as 2 new faces found the way onto the pitch, Umaima Rob (sister of Ishaq) and Zaynab Dean to join the long list of Deans supporting Yardley's youth system. Both players played really well and for a first game did more than could have been expected.
Next up Blossomfield away
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