Date

Bradley Stoke Utd under 11’s took on Yate United in the first league game of the season.  They ended up losing 4:1 but that does not tell the whole story.

It was Bradley Stoke who started off much the brighter.  The slick passing from back to front and link up play was a joy to watch and soon chances started to come. The best of them came to Sammy after good work down the left but he shot just wide.  At the back Jonah and Nathan B were really well organised and were snuffing out any Yate attacks early on. 

Josh and Adam were also not giving their wingers and joy at all.  However Yate were always looking dangerous with their pace and using the ball over the top of the defence but Dan was up to stopping anything that did get through the defence.  After 20 minutes it looked like Bradley Stoke were the team that had finished runners up last season and it was therefore against the run of play when Yate scored when we lost the ball in midfield and they scored with a fine run and finish.  It got worse when just before half time a through ball squirmed out of Dan’s grasp and was poked home.   

The half time team talk reminded the boys how well they had played and that the game wasn’t over.  Again we started the half well but this time it was rewarded when Joe put the ball into the top of the net from a tight angle.  Could we get back on terms?  Unfortunately the answer was no......

Yate dominated the next 10 to 15 mins and went 3:1 up with a shot from the edge of the box. Heads did not go down this time and the game became more even with us again playing some really nice football and both Sam and Joe had chances to bring us closer to Yate again. However as the boys had put such a lot of effort into the game in such warm conditions Yate began to dominate again especially down the flanks.  Tom made a couple of fine saves but eventually the pressure told and it was 4:1 following a defence splitting pass from the Yate midfield.