Badgers Vs Stratford

Yardley Badgers 2 v 0 Stratford

 Goal Scorers:      Islam Islam and Zak

Yardley Badgers' first win of the season. The young squad have played some brilliant hockey this season and up to today had five draws and very close loses against some of the strongest clubs in the West Midlands.

Today’s game was a competitive affair with both teams playing very exciting hockey. The visitors slightly edged the first half, with better possession and attacks in the Yardley “D”.  The home team contested hard in the midfield to break up the visitors’ play. Yardley played a guest first teamer today, Alex, who commanded his back line with strong tackles and intelligent link up play to the wide players. He encouraged more expansive play from his defensive trio and pushed the back llne high when supporting the midfield.  The defence as a whole had a great game, tackling, passing and linking up to the midfield. The visitors had many talented “county” players who drove forward at every opportunity, hitting powerful crosses into the home team’s “D”.  Yardley defended these crosses by marking well the players in the “D”.

The first half finished 0-0 and the team came off the pitch for a team talk and oranges provided by  John Ballard. It was noted to the team that players needed to pass more clinically and not clear blindly from the back. The team shape importance was also re-emphasised before the re-start.

During the second half, the home team started strongly and throughout the half had more possession and attacks on goal. This was basically down to good disciplined team shape and better accurate passing. Moving quickly off the ball gave players on the ball simple passes and the multi passing was a joy to watch with the team stringing four to five passes through the midfield to attack. Unusually the home team’s first goal was a break away single handled run by Islam, making a good interception inside his own half then running through the midfield players and then defenders, he powered into the “D” and as the keeper advanced he shot inside the near post, with it scrambling over the line before Zak could get a final touch “to make sure”.

This buoyed Stratford to find an equaliser and they pushed high for ten minutes and Yardley had to defend frantically. When Yardley did win possession the counter attack was extremely effective and the forwards got some good shots away. The home midfield made good runs into dangerous positions and got great crosses to the back post. Eventually the pressure eased on the home team’s defence and the midfield put some clever passes together to get through the midfield and attack the “D” in numbers.  The second goal for the home team was by Zak, picking the ball up on the edge of their “D” moving towards goal, drawing in the keeper then hitting it into the far corner.

Stratford never gave up and Yardley had to defend hard for the final five minutes to keep the clean sheet. The Yardley team are a mixture of age groups and abilities but each and every one of them worked hard and played good passing hockey.  Cem was a new player this week to the Badgers set up and was warmly welcomed by his new team mates. He worked hard up front and showed much promise for our next game at Olton away 4.30pm.