Badgers Vs West Bromwich Badgers

West Bromwich 0 v 1 Yardley

Goalscorer - Barakah

Yardley Badgers have lost a lot of players over the summer break for a mixture of reasons. Promotions into the First team, players moving to other clubs closer to home and players who felt a little overwhelmed with the hustle and bustle of Badger’s hockey (the wide age ranges 8-16).

So Yardley started the first game of season 19/20 with 9 players (it was so nearly 12, but 3 unavailable). West Bromwich kindly loaned us a 10th man and they reduced their team to ten too.

Yardley started positively, passing around the back and through the midfield. Accurate passes with good ball speed. All the team were getting involved and West Bromwich looked a little static in the early exchanges. The visitors’ confidence grew and began to do solo runs with the ball and attack high up the field. This broke the team shape a little bit and West Bromwich managed to break down the solo attacks and began running from deep into dangerous positions getting good crosses into the “D”.

West Brom’s confidence grew and they began getting more possession. Fortunately, the defence of Aeysha, Sean and Paul ( adult ) protected the keeper Anthony ( adult ). The midfield of Barakah, Dawood, Zak, Cem and Jake all helped the defence dropping back when needed. Our loan players who all kindly rotated 10 minutes at a time helped our team and we were very grateful to there help in the game.

The game soon became very even and both teams had chances in the “D”. West Brom had the first real chance when a powerful cross went whizzing to the back post but their youngest player turned the ball narrowly wide. Yardley unfortunately kept the ball narrow not using the wide players to good effect and kept being blocked when getting close to goal. But with ten minutes left of the half Barakah received the ball inside the attacking “D” and got past a defender and shot at goal. It got an awkward bobble and bounced over the off balanced keeper’s leg into the back of the net. 1-0 to Yardley.

Yardley seemed to defend this lead for the next 40 minutes and lost a lot of possession easily. But again, the visitors’ defence held firm to take the first victory of the season.

Well done to all the players. It was a great team performance with lots of hard graft. Yardley team made it a little bit harder for themselves by not passing the ball with more fluidity. If the team had held their shape and passed like the first ten minutes, I’m sure they could have made the victory a more comfortable one.