Cribbs Vets vs Retainers FC

Match Reports

We had a squad of 15, after Christian dropped out with the pathetic excuse that his wife had a hangover!! This included Simon Wright, our U18 Manager, and keeper Paul Freeman, both making their Vets debuts. This brought the average age of the squad down to a mere 45.3 to play against a decidedly younger Retainers side, although we had beaten them twice in the last 2 seasons!

We opted to start with a 3-5-2 formation, and it seemed to be working for the first 2 minutes, as, with our first real attack, Coatesy was put through on goal, but upended in the box for a penalty, which he took himself, scoring off the underside of the crossbar. It was a bit downhill after that, as Retainers superior passing and movement enabled them to take control of the game, and, after a couple of near misses, they equalised after 10 minutes with an unchallenged header from a corner. It was largely one-way traffic for the rest of the half, as they seemed to dominate midfield, despite us supposedly have 5 against them, and they eventually deservedly took the lead before half-time to make it 2-1. Whilst our attacks were infrequent, due to our poor final ball, we did create a few chances, the best of which fell to Capes, who uncharacteristically not only missed the goal, he nearly hit the corner flag!! 2-1 at half-time. 

We decided to change the formation at half-time to 4-5-1, and this seemed to have the desired effect as we had much more of an attacking threat, with Capes and Kinger supporting Coatesy, and Coatesy had 2 great chances to equalise, but their keeper made some good saves to keep the score to 2-1. Unfortunately, the new formation left us a bit more vulnerable at the back, and slightly against the run of play Retainers got their 3rd halfway through the half. After that, Kinger had a golden chance to make it 3-2 after Coatesy’s shot was blocked, but his shot was tipped onto the bar by their keeper, and then Coatesy had a header saved by the keeper. That was as good as it got, and Retainers ran away with it in the last 20 minutes scoring 3 more good goals, and could have had a couple more, to make the final score 6-1.

Retainers deservedly won, but it could have been 6-4 (or 8-4) on another day. The match was played in an excellent spirit, apart from their centre forward being caught constantly offside, and then moaning about it!