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Fleetwood Tournament
Well done to all who played in yesterdays tournament, our first attempt at 11 a side football. The weather was not too pleasant but the rain held off until later in the day at least. Teams from all around Lancashire entered the tournament although Typhoons were drawn in a group with some of our local rivals Kirkham Juniors, AFC Blackpool and Fleetwood Gym (the hosts) as well as a Manchester team Benchill Celtic. Games were 15 minutes in length.
Our first game was against Kirkham and we started brightly getting the ball forward and had some chances in and around the Kirkham box with Matthew and Jack looking lively. Jack got a ball full in the face and had to be replaced by Joseph who had an immediate effect on the game skipping past several defenders and crossing well. However after about 10 minutes Kirkham broke down the left and their striker hit one from the edge of the box giving Oliver no chance. Kirkham then took control of the game and scored 2 more in similar fashion leaving the final score as 3-0 to them.
The second game was against Fleetwood and seemed to represent our best chance of win given we had played so well against them in the league. But this is now 11 a side and we struggled to take control of the game leaving gaps at the back, perhaps because we’d moved Cal and Matthew into midfield, soon Fleetwood put us under pressure and after a goalmouth scramble we conceded a goal. Not to be outdone we pressed the game with Cal now controlling midfield ably assisted by Michael, Thomas and Joshua. Several through balls to the strikers were fashioned only for the linesman to flag us offside but finally we got a ball to Jack who impressively went round the keeper to score the equiliser. This stirred Fleetwood and they pressed for a winner putting our makeshift 3 man defence of Cameron, Ryan and Dan under pressure and when a chance did fall to their star player he stroked the ball past Oli for their 2nd. The game then turned our way again as our lads put the goal behind them and pressed for another equiliser and it came in very similar fashion to the first with Jack again running through to slot the ball home. The game ended 2-2.
The third game was against new opposition Benchill who had just been beaten 5-0 against a Kirkham side continually gaining in confidence. Sadly this is a game to forget. Benchill perhaps spurred on by their defeat really pressed us and we hardly got out of our half. Our inexperience at the bigger game told as we just couldn’t hold onto the ball long enough to be ably to attack. Our defending in and around the box was stubborn enough though limiting Benchill ‘s chances and when they did get a chance Oli made several good saves. However out luck couldn’t last and Benchill broke through twice to leave us with another defeat.
Our final group game was against rivals AFC Blackpool who finished one higher than us in the league last season. The game was end to end with AFC having several chances but it was typhoons who nearly won it..twice! First Jack was played in after some good work on the right by Joshua and Alexander he turned and shot beating the keeper but sadly not the crossbar. Then the games last move involved several players with the ball falling to Matthew who looked like he was going to score only for their keeper to pull off an outstanding save to keep the score at 0-0. This left us 4th in the group which meant we qualified for the plate competition.
Our plate semi-final was against Northside again new opposition for us but as they had finished with the same points in their group as Foxhall and Thornton only to lose out on goal difference we knew we’d have a tough task. To make matters worse the plate competition was played on the astro turf (where Northside had played all their games). The pitch looked slightly bigger on the astro turf and the nets were definitely bigger on account of the fact that they were permanent metal goals whereas we’d been using constantly deflating blow up goals in our group games, Craig having to sort our a particularly limp goal before the AFC game. Anyway Northside started the brightest and really pressed us into our half having good luck down their left side and creating quite a few chances. The game was evenly fought though until we gave a free kick away about 30 yards out. Their kicker just floated the ball though and it flew high over everyone’s heads leaving Oli stranded. The second half started with us taking the game to Northside a bit more with Bradley, Cal and Cameron putting several good tackles in and Alexander making some good runs. Jack, Jospeh and Matthew continued their good days so far giving their defence some worries. Sadly though after we had defended a corner well the ball broke to one of the defenders who again lobbed Oli by just floating the ball high over the whole defence into the back of huge nets. After that our hearts were broken and Northside scored again knocking us out 3-0.
A mixed day then with some players seeming to enjoy the extra space whilst others look like they need a few games to get used to the bigger pitch and that’s ok and is to be expected. No one had a bad day and to use language that you will hear elsewhere in football at the moment.. no one played themselves out of the squad! Jez and I voted for men of the tournament and although it was a close run thing between Cal, Jack, Mat and Joseph Cal won an award for the day because he just looked like he has all season full of enthusiasm, passion and running. Joseph also won an award for his very impressive skilful work against several teams. Praise must also go to Jack who looked more lethal at this level and Mat who played all day out of position in midfield for us. A great day considering it was our first 11 a side games and we had done no specific 11 a side coaching.