Suburban Premier Division.
Maidenhead Reserves 2-0 Tring Athletic Reserves

Firstly, thank you very much to everyone including the parents of some of the younger lads for helping to get a good squad of 16 players to take on the League leaders who included one player on a pro contract at Hearts ( that's how bad he is!!!)

Staying with the 3-5-2 we were decent in possession and worked hard to restrict Maidenhead, which we did very successfully in the first period. In truth we didn't really create any real openings but then, apart from one long ball over the top, neither did our opponents.

In midfield Will Foley on his first start proved a valuable acquisition and with Joe Smith getting his first 90 mins of the season in, he and James Shaw worked effectively to get us forward whilst out wide Frankie Hercules showed he may well become the " better Hercules" ( apart from Pops - obviously!!!).

With 17 year old James Byerley making consistent good decisions and some of the older brigade doing their part it was difficult to see quite where the supposed massive difference between the team was .

After 30 mins Maidenhead began to dominate but a few lessons had been learnt and by taking the pace out of the game we arrived at half time at a deserved 0-0.


For some reason we weren't quite so "at it" in the second period but it would be unfair to say that Maidenhead at any stage looked in control until unfortunately a free header on the far post from a free kick and a disappointing second following a poorly defended throw in gave us a lot to do.

There was no lack of effort, by changing players and formations to try to get back in the game but apart from one header by Redha Zekri and a possible penalty turned down we didn't trouble their custodian .

With 7 of the U 18 s involved, who will get invaluable experience which will stand them in good stead in their careers we will hopefully finish our season with another couple of needed victories.

Onto Woking on Thursday,which will incidentally be our 4 th consecutive game against a National Conference League Reserve team.

M.Richardson,J.Byerley, R.McMahon, G.Terblanche.
F.Hercules (W.Bisnet) W.Foley ( T.Paul) J.Smith,J. Shaw (R.Hazel) T.Shaw.
R.Zekri ( O.Ruttle) M.Hendrickson ( J.Naylor)

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