Barnstoneworth Over 45DC vs Killarney Vale – Round 7 Match Report

This week the 45DC came up against Killarney. We had decided to park the bus until we saw what we were up against after we got demolished last year, but the team interpreted this as ‘maintain a coherent midfield’, so turned out to be a really good idea.

Jim’s first act was to stand on the ball and Adam went off injured so things were going swimmingly, but both teams went at it hard and after 15 mins with our trademark passing game extending even to the forwards and chances flowing, we won a corner. The ball was crossed into the box from the left and then the right. It was cleared and then Tommy put it back in and it fell in front of Alan, who snapped at the bouncing ball and shinned it straight to Steve Pope who kicked it in. An Alan-assist (deliberate or not) was surely auspicious and, buoyed by our lead, we continued as we were; trying to make the ball stick up the field with Wash, Jim and Steve all making themselves a nuisance.

Mid-way through the second half, with both sides having wasted a couple of good chances, and the game being played end-to-end, with massive holes all over the place, Steve struck again. With both sides tiring, and running out of fit subs, the midfield took over and passed the ball around to minimise further unnecessary running about, while the defence strangled any Killarney attempts to regain parity. We were more than a little pleased to launch ourselves up the table to the heady heights of fifth with our first win, in a good humoured and well-contested game of football.

Man of the match went to Steve Pope for continuing to press their defence 75 minutes into the game, winning several balls just outside the area (in addition to the 2 goals he scored).

Goal scorer: Steve Pope (2)
Player’s player: Steve Pope