by Jeff King (with a significant nod to Colin Wotherspoon)
Wearside League Division 1 - Wednesday 15th January 2025 Chester-le-Street United Reserves 1 v 0 Barnard Castle
Wednesday night was the first game of 2025 for United's reserves and the game went ahead at The Riverside Sports Complex after a late pitch inspection was passed although the conditions were tricky and the surface very heavy.
It was as tough as it gets in this league for United's young reserve lads against the inform team in the league. Barnard castle came into the game on a 10 match unbeaten run having beaten the league leaders Willington 7 - 1 in their previous game.
Just a couple of days prior to the game United had lost first choice keeper Rylie Irwin who had decided to return to his previous club Deerness Valley so it gave an opportunity to young Harry Telfer who is in the Park View Academy Development Centre and still at school (u16s).
Head Coach Colin Wotherspoon and Assistant Willi Donachie's pre-match talk was about doing the basics well as a group and competing against a strong in form side.
The first half was played at a 100 mile an hour with both sides being fully committed to the cause. The only real chances possibly falling to Barnard Castle opposition but thankfully United managed to go into the break level at 0-0.
The Coaches more than pleased with their side's efforts and organisation first half and strongly reminded the group that they thought United had to give even more second half if they wanted anything from the game.
United sent out the sane starting 11 second half and they started to look like they not only believed they could compete but start taking the game to Barnard Castle with real drive and purpose.
Young Telfer in goal had to make a good save down to his right hand side to keep United level, before Wotherspoon and Donachie made 3 changes on 60 minutes that gave United more energy and attacking options.
Bringing on Jude Anderson, Kymani Severin and Finn Cook pushing Keane Mitchell into midfield to give us more power driving forward and this worked to United's advantage when Severin became the provider.
He put in a fantastic cross to the back post that Mitchell did great to rise and head into the top left hand corner to put United 1-0 in front and the win was now on.
United had other opportunity’s to put the game to bed that they failed to take which was slightly disappointing as this gave Barnard the opportunity to throw everything at us late in the game.
But United we did great as a collective unit working hard and staying together superbly to hold out and collect all 3 points that took them to 7th place in the table with games on hand on virtually all teams above them
A special mention has to go out to the young back 4 and even younger u16 goal keeper who did fantastic well to deal with the physicality our opponents provided and keep a clean sheet.
The midfield trio of Captain Olly Dixon, Matthew Henderson and Leo Fasuan covered every blade of grass for the team and our front 3 also played their part throughout the game as United took a significant scalp in fine style.
It was also great to see Joe Walls get the final 15 minutes of the game as he returned from a long-term ACL injury.
TEAM : 1. Harry Telfer 2. Joe Sykes 3. Keane Mitchell 4. Matthew Henderson 5. Dan Walton 6. Dylan Robson 7. Evan Cubby 8. Ollie Dixon (c) 9. Jack Wilson 10. Leo Fasuan 11. Harvey Lawrence
SUBS : 12. Jude Anderson (for Wilson 60 mins) 14. Kymani Severin (for Cubby 60 mins) 15. Finn Cook (for Henderson 60 mins) 16. Joe Walls (for Lawrence 75 mins)
SCORER : Mitchell
MAN of the MATCH : Dylan Robson - His partnership with Dan Walton gave United a fantastic base to work on throughout the game.
Opmerkingen