Saturday 30th Saturday 2016 @ Heartlands Academy
West Midlands Schools’ FA – Under 11s Division One
Erdington and Saltley 1 – 1 Sutton Coldfield
Team: Rob, Sam, Diago, Taylor, Samim, Tion, Cameron P, Kye, Rio and Pharelle
Goal: Cameron P
During the past 7 or 8 weeks we have played Sutton Coldfield a fair few times, in fact today was our seventh encounter! However this only illustrates the superb season that both teams are having as most of those games were finals! Nevertheless it’s fair to say that we’re all Suttoned out and I’m sure they’re all Erdingtoned out too!
We knew that today’s game would be the last for a while, as well as being the start of our West Midlands Schools’ FA campaign. There were some very disappointed players following last week’s Daniel Sturridge Cup final defeat and this is something that we talked about prior to today’s game. The message to the lads was simple – Fight. Fight more. Don’t stop fighting.
The most pleasing thing about today’s game was that the lads ran for every ball, jumped for every header and smashed every tackle. They couldn’t have tried any harder and certainly improved on last week’s Sutton encounter.
The game couldn’t have started any better for us, as Cameron charged down the left chasing a seemingly lost cause, before brilliantly keeping the ball in and slotting it home. One-nil after only 13 seconds! It was without doubt our best start of the season.
For the next 45 minutes we battled heroically and ran ourselves into the ground. It wasn’t pretty, and at times it was fairly ugly, but that didn’t bother me one bit. The lads were fighting and giving it everything that they had.
Chances were few and far between but five minutes into the final third, Sutton Coldfield managed to equalise. For the next five minutes we lost our way a bit and the goal seemed to have knocked the lads. Just when it looked like Sutton would push for a second, the lads found their rhythm again and steadied the ship, coming close a couple of times in the closing minutes of the game.
Overall the lads should be incredibly proud of their shift today. They gave it everything that they had and made us all immensely proud! It was just what the doctor ordered!
Well done to the Sutton boys, who also gave it 110%. However don’t take this the wrong way lads, but it’ll be nice to take on Bath next week! I’m sure we’ll meet again before too long!
Man of the Match: Tion – this was a tough one to pick as all of the boys worked their socks off. However Tion was the very definition of committed. Sitting in front of the back three, he protected his defence superbly and remained disciplined throughout the game. Well done kid!
Up The Ton!
Erdington and Saltley Primary Schools' FA 