The squad for our 7 a side match against new team 1664 saw several changes from recent weeks with Ollie Tedder replacing Jacko in goal and only Alan Barnard and Danny Hagan being regulars. Vernon ‘Kizza’ Nxumalo made his second consecutive appearance and brought along another debutant in Julian Carvey. Jim Arrowsmith drove home from Manchester to show the sort of commitment we need and Gavin Mardell and Laurence Hughes were drafted in at short notice.
1664 have had some good results and were a young fit side so a sending off after just 4 minutes for swearing at the referee certainly helped us as we only had to play against 6 players. We started well and were creating chances but fell behind after 14 minutes to a breakaway goal. Julian Carvey equalised on his debut but we went behind again with the last shot of the first half after Alan Barnard’s pass was intercepted for another breakaway goal. Julian Carvey changed his boots at half time and was unlucky not to equalise in our first attack of the second half as the keeper pulled off a fine save. It was only a minute later that another long shot put us 3-1 down. Julian did pull another goal back but was denied his hat trick by another superb save from the keeper and Danny Hagan also hit the bar. Our last chance saw Kizza hacked down when clean through just outside the area but we couldn’t convert the free kick and ended up losing 3-2.