Buckhurst Hill Royals 1 – 3 Woodford Yth
Sunday 14th Sept 2014 (friendly)
After a good display and some fluid passing football last week the manager wanted to put that narrow loss against Ryan behind us and keep the boys fresh and continue to increase match fitness and team awareness. We were fortunate therefore that Woodford Youth agreed to play us in this friendly.
However that optimism soon turned to despair with an undisciplined and lacklustre display from Hill with the stand out moment of skill coming from an incredible finish by one of the Woodford Youth forwards.
The boys were undisciplined and uninterested in the warm up, their normal focus was missing from the pre match drills and that transferred to the game which started off as a scrappy affair with little flowing football on either side. On 17 minutes a long range blistering shot from Singh Basi struck the Woodford bar and fell into the path of Bolton who was unable to capitalise and Woodford cleared the danger.
The normal Hill short crisp passing game was nowhere to be seen and disappointingly with a few exceptions, years of hard work on the training ground perfecting a quick passing game all seemed for nothing. There was little discipline and the boys need to realise that no one can move faster than the ball and pass and move will always obtain better results through the course of a game than trying to run through a team.
It was not until 24 minutes that we saw some football from Hill, interplay between H Barrett and Swan found Harris on the edge of the area but his well struck effort went over the bar.
Three minutes later came the one piece of exceptional skill in the game, Woodford broke down the right hand side and whipped a cross into the far post at pace, the Woodford forward pulled off an overhead kick just outside the six yard box which was reminiscent of Rooney’s goal against Manchester City. He connected perfectly with the ball which flew into the bottom corner giving the Hill keeper no chance. A piece of high quality skill and one of the best goals this reporter has seen in boys football. 0-1.
Woodford then went two nil up. A Woodford throw in from the right found the receiving player just inside the area, his cross come shot found S Barrett off guard and he was only able to parry the ball into his own net. 0-2. Half time.
3 minutes after the restart Hill did at last pass the ball quickly and a good interplay found Redhead who was able to scoop the ball into the net, but the linesman’s flag was up and the goal did not stand.
7 minutes into the second period saw a nice cross by Grace on the Hill left found Redhead whose header was well met but straight at the keeper. However 5 minutes later Hill went further behind, a cross field ball from the right of the Woodford midfield found the Woodford winger on the edge of the Hill box, he took a great first touch which pulled him back inside the Hill defender and his first time pass into the Woodford centre forward saw him beat the keeper to give Woodford a 0-3 lead.
25 minutes after halftime saw one of the few fluid passing moves by Hill in the final 3rd some nice interplay saw the ball come to Swan but the keeper was able to save his shot, the ball then broke to Brookes on the left and his thunderous shot was very well saved by the Woodford keeper at the near post. Woodford then immediately broke with pace and moved the ball quickly to their centre forward who rounded the keeper to slot the ball home only for a last ditch goal line clearance by Harrison racing back to block the ball on the line.
A late consolation goal came for Hill when Brookes cut inside the penalty area on the left only to be brought down. Grace stepped up to slot home from the spot, 1-3 and soon afterwards the ref put us out of our misery.
Having written numerous reports over the past few years and struggled to find different superlatives to describe the quality of our football it was very disappointing to watch such a poor display of football from our boys. With a couple of exceptions there was very little passing football and in the final 3rd it was all but non-existent with boys driving forward rather than looking up laying the ball into teammates in space and letting the ball beat the opposition rather than trying to run through them. Hill need to return quickly to the fluid pass and move football that has cut teams apart.
There was a rumour going round the crowd that the new coach King had received a vote of confidence following the two defeats since he took up post, but the whole family seem to be getting into the new management role with tracksuits and sweatshirts seen across the board.
The boys will need to play better than this and return to the football the manager wants to play. If they listen to the coach and the manager and put their plans and teaching into practice they have the quality needed for another successful season. If they ignore it and try to play for themselves rather than the team as we saw today they will come away empty handed at the end of the season.
Come on lads you are much much better than today’s evidence.