Men's 3rd XI Vs Belper 7

3rd XI Match Report 

South Nottingham Mighty 3s 1 Belper 7s 1. 

The winner?  Probably the weather!  

After some great weather reporting by Gary Pickering ‘live’ from Bingham in the morning (slight diversion from shopping picking Andy up a loaf) the game went ahead as scheduled despite some gusting winds but surprisingly little rain. 

We had a revised line up this week with Simon in goal after an absence, Sam L helping out on the pitch and the services of Mike Coxe.

We started well using the skills of our youngsters, particularly Rhys, Sam and Hamza but Belper always looked dangerous on the break and had a certain goal cleared off the line by Knappster who had a superb game from start to finish. 

South dominated play with some good link ups down the right particularly with Rhys making some lazy runs but despite possession few chances seemed to come our way. 

The occasional counter from Belper always looked dangerous and a couple of short corners later Belper duffed a short and somehow the ball was bundled into the goal. 1-0 Belper. 

The rest of the half carried on the same way with South dominating but with few shots on goal apart from a screamer from Hanza on the volley which somehow the keeper managed to get a glove to. 

Half time and a good team talk from Ken saw South turnaround and carried on with more pressure and the occasional goal chance. Paul our star centre forward and third highest goal scorer in the league - the top two both being from NTU - had the run on their left back and created a number of really good opportunities down our right. That said, the goal came from going down the left where the Paul was taken out by their keeper - flick. Cool as you like Paul converted 1 - 1. 

South carried on with more pressure and Belper hung on to be fair as we failed to make many clear goal scoring opportunities. 

Final score 1-1. Probably the right result but by possession percentage we should have won. 

Once again the youngsters were the stars, Sam x 2, Hanza, Rhys, helped by legends Wallace, Hopewell, Knappster, Ken, James new kid Mike and goal king Paul. Well played all. 

Happy recovery to Rhys who got a smarting crack on the side of the knee. 

Big thank you to Batty and Tom for umpiring.   Great job.