A PROUD DAY TO BE A RAVEN

Subs

• P.Ryan for Abbott

• Foster for Mcloughlin

• Stokes for Mytton

On Saturday afternoon I was sitting watching the full time results coming through from the Premier League and I saw that Arsenal had beaten Middlesborough 7-0.  I saw the look on the Middlesboro managers face and I couldn’t help but wonder If I would be feeling something like that after the Cadbury game.  Instead I left the game feeling proud that I can call myself the Coach of great bunch of lads after a gutsy and hard working performance.

Just so we are all clear on who we were playing, I have pinched some info off the Cadbury website that I would like to share with you.

• Premier League Champions - Under 9s, 10s and 11s

• Open Cup Winners - Under 9s, 10s and 12s

• 5 aside tournament Winners at Chelmsley Town , Redditch , Castlehurst, Callowbrook, Erdington and Rubery.

If that was not enough they also Won the Sports club International Trophy in Weymouth in 2005 which is tournament with clubs from all over Europe .

The game itself started as expected.  Cadbury had most of the ball and quickly pinned us back.  They were having great joy up our left wing and Jim was often left with 2 players to deal with.  We swapped Matt and Dylan over to add some of Matt’s defences qualities to the left and that seemed to help us out.

The game plan was to try and frustrate Cadbury for 20 minutes.  We did this well, with a bit of luck at times and the Cadbury players and supporters were visibly upset by the way we were keeping them out.

As the half went on we began to get further forward.  Alex and Dylan saw more of the ball and Mike Halloran was having a great tussle with the tall and classy centre back.  Alex and Dylan were both almost in on goal from great through balls but last ditch tackles kept the score at 0-0.  For me the highlight of the half was the 2 or 3 goal mouth scrambles that we managed to keep the ball out.  Steven was often very brave in denying the Cadbury strikers and Jim, Matt B, Scott and Graham all put in crucial blocks to keep them at bay.

Half time. 0-0 and we couldn’t have hoped for anymore.  We had played against a fair wind too which makes our achievement even better.

The 2nd half was more even and we were more of an attacking force.  We got Alex and Mike on the ball a lot more and in better areas of the pitch.

Our passing as a whole was probably the only disappointing aspect of the game.  We were wining tackles and then sloppily giving the ball straight back to the opposition.  Dylan and Matt both made great forward runs, beating defenders and then played bad passes top give the ball away.

We were more that in the game until Cadbury got a goal.  Graham and Scott had been immense at the back and we were rather unfortunate to concede.  Graham put in a tackle on the edge of the area but the ball ran for the Cadbury striker to make it 1-0.

The most pleasing aspect for me was that we didn’t role over and let Cadbury score more goals.  We even slightly lifted our game.  Alex twice almost got on the end of Halloran’s passes and Mike himself shot just wide.

The substitutes went on and all contributed.  Peter in particular was impressive.

Cadbury scored a late goal which I think was a little unjust as out team had fought and battled to the very end.

At the final whistle I heard a lot of the Cadbury players and supporters shouting “YES”.  This proves that they had been in a game and that they were relieved to have come through.

Well done to everyone and maybe you can now understand why our performance against Moor Green frustrated me so much.  We know you can do it, you just have to do it more often.

Steve