14.02.04
First team match report:
Yet again the Force put on a display that would not have looked out of place in the XXXX Premier League. Merrimac played some nice football and where a well organized side with some very talented individual players, who caused the Force one or two problems. At the 30 minute mark, and against the run of play, Merrimac's wide left midfielder got in behind his marker and pounced on a low cross, first blood to Merrimac.
The score remained the same at the interval. John Ogden told the players to continue playing the way they had in the first half as the majority of scoring opportunities had been created by the Force. The second half started in much the same way as the first half had ended, with the Force asking most of the questions and enjoying most of the possession. Apart from a 10 minute spell in the middle of the second half when Merrimac put the Force under constant pressure the Force looked very much in control and all credit to the Force defence for holding strong.
The breakthrough came on 70 minutes when Nicky and Drit put the Merrimac keeper under
pressure and forced the keeper to panic clear the ball straight into
Nicky, which sent the ball into the back of the net. Eight minutes later, Scott hammered a shot goal bound which the keeper could only palm down into the path of Drit who had followed in on Scott's shoot, 2-1 to the Force. Unfortunately the sun must have got to the Referee, as having had many opportunities to book one of the Merrimac center backs for persistently giving away free kicks against Dritt, he saw fit to send Dan Conner off for what seemed to be a bit of push and shove.
The match was entertaining with both sides playing some very attractive football considering the extremely high temperature. The average age of the Force team this Saturdays was 19 and with the a midfield that averaged 17 years of age. "John, Andrew and I could not be happier with what we have seen to date, there is still a lot of work to do and we are still a way off the quality of football that we want to see by the start of the season. With such a large influx of new players it will take time to gel" Said Steve Murray.