Unfortunately we were only able to field a 'bare seven' players for this week's match against second-placed Emerald Rovers after Danny Smith and Lee King both dropped out during the afternoon due to work commitments, so that didn't bode well against a side we had lost 9-0 and 9-1 to last Summer.
That meant I had to play up front, but at least we had six other decent players available with Olie Tedder being a capable goalkeeper, while Terry Moore, Alan Barnard, Danny Hagan, Rob Brown & Jim Arrowsmith...all first-choice players...made up the rest of the side.
However, Emerald Rovers were fielding a strong squad of 8 very good players including former Republic Of Ireland Under-21 International and Enfield Town player Niall Ritchie, and they had too much quality for us in the final third. We therefore found ourselves 3-0 down at Half-Time, which was partly my fault as I had eaten too much for Dinner (thinking that Lee King would be playing instead of me) and I could hardly move for fear of chundering up on the pitch. However, a drink of water during the break did me good and I was able to run about a lot more in the Second Half, and as a result, we played much better as a team. We still found ourselves 4-0 down with about 10 minutes to go though, when Niall Ritchie volleyed in, but at least Alan Barnard came up from the back to pull a goal back and we created a few other chances.
4-1 was how it finished though, and we couldn't really complain about the scoreline.
Hopefully we will have some new players to try out next Thursday, as obviously I shouldn't be playing at the age of 51 !
Lol, still not sure why you didn't called either myself or Kris up when you found out Danny Smith wasn't playing. Bit risky playing such a 'quality' side with a bare seven in my opinion.
We are allowed a squad of 10 but this causes problems with playing time due to the number of substitutions.
I was happy for a squad of 9 to allow for people turning up late or last minute unavailability.
However, I agreed to reduce the squad to 8 because most of the players do not want to be substituted and are 'fit enough' to play the full game.
As I was unavailable Laurence would have been in the difficult position of making the unpopular substitutions to accomodate a squad of 8 so I do understand why he did not call anyone up.
I will be there next week and Tem should be in the squad if available.
As I was unavailable Laurence would have been in the difficult position of making the unpopular substitutions to accomodate a squad of 8 so I do understand why he did not call anyone up.
