Charnleigh v Ashby U14s

On a cold Sunday morning we arrived at Loughborough Grammar school ready to host a strong and experienced Ashby team, a little under prepared having not being able to train since well before Christmas.

As expected, the visitors came out fast and pressed high. This early pressure meant a lot of early turnovers and blocked passes so our boys found themselves 3 goals down inside the first 8 minutes. Not the best of starts and something we need to look at going forward. But once the Charnleigh lads settled in to the game and relaxed a bit more on the ball, it was a more open game. Yes, Ashby still created a few more chances but their attacks were soaked up and dealt with well for the rest of the first half. 

A few chances of our own created from quick breaks which, on another day with a little more luck, could have turned in to a goal or 2 but the half ended at 0 - 3. Considering the way it started, this isn't a bad score line at all. 

A bit of positive feedback and morale lifting at half time sadly didn't stop Ashby doing their thing and the second half started with another early goal from the visitors. Some spells of really good passing and relentless hassling in midfield made it difficult for Ashby and the game felt a lot more even with chances coming from both sides.

Unfortunately the best of those chances came from Ashby who pick up another couple of goals with the game eventually ending in a 0 - 6 loss. 

But the score line really did not reflect the game at all. Ashby were expecting to get a lot more from this game. Their team was made up of older, bigger lads who have played and trained together for some time. We have some younger players and our team has only played together 3 game previous to this and only had a handful of training sessions. 

But every single one of our boys gave Ashby a good run and made sure they knew they had to fight for this win.

Well done to all the boys today.

And a big thank you to everyone that came to support.

We might be out of the cup now but we have 3 more league games to come. If we play like that again, we can come away with 3 decent results and finish our first u14s season on a high.