Match report from Colin Ainsworth

The badgers went to Yate on Sunday morning to play on a pitch that most were quite familiar with following all the festivals hosted there. The team was made up from under 14s apart from 1 against a Yate team with a wide mix of ages. We had our one adult playing at centre back to try to give a little stability and direction on the pitch. Yate came out quickly and we spent most of the first 10 minutes pretty much under the cosh and barely got out of our own half. However, Yate managed very few shots in that period, but were very good at getting the pressure on and keeping us penned in. We seemed to work out after a little while to get the ball wide and use our wings to move the ball up the pitch. It also looked as though Poppy and Josh up top had the legs on the defenders, even though they had 3 back to marshal them. Once we worked out how to keep our positions to get the play going our way we moved the ball well and although it made the last 3rd of the pitch look like we were just getting break away goals, they were made by careful play in the midfield to find the forwards in space.

The first goal came from a good move finding Dan Kaye to score neatly in the corner and the next was gained through more good play coming from the two Dan’s in the middle of the pitch, finding Josh high and after a couple of neat jinks found himself space to have a shot which wasn’t his best, but the keeper failed to get to. Yate kept coming back with more pressure and hit the post with one good strike and another short corner which they just failed to bring out of the D before a great shot came in and was deflected up by the attacker as you would hope to see at some high level hockey, but was kept out by Stan’s face, thank god for face masks! It would have been a penalty flick if it wasn’t for the ball failing to go out of the D before the first shot.

The second half continued with more of the same, a lot of pressure from Yate which didn’t generate many shots on target, but another Yate short corner had a great strike which Joe just failed to keep out, but as it was lifted quite high, it didn’t count. Joe also managed to keep another out using his face and a third with a great shot out to his right, but amazing reactions to put the foot out and push it out wide. North managed plenty more chances, almost always created by some flowing passing moves which made the coaches proud, but we seemed to struggle to strike the ball on the move, causing us to fluff our chances, but we managed to get another goal through Dan Kaye to make it 3-0, which was probably a little flattering against a skillful Yate side. We certainly made more chances, because we played well as a team, whereas Yate had some skillful players who crafted their own individual chances to score but did not use others who were in a better position.

Well done to everyone, the coaches present – Colin, Charlie and Alex decided that our player of the match was Joe, but all the players performed well and were doing what the coaches had asked them to. Old Bristolians at home next week, they seem to have had the better of the men’s sides this season, so lets home the badgers can get some revenge!