Men's 4th XI Vs Nottingham 4 Development

The weather was great and our team was well organised and fully prepared for the encounter at Goosedale.

South were under pressure from the start but our defence held firm with some great interceptions from Grahams Johnson and Morgan. Dan Pearson was strong in his tackling and ball distribution which was regularly picked up by Cole Cadman who benefits from his fantastic acceleration.

South had several opportunities to score in the first half but couldn’t get a successful last touch and score. Nottingham’s pressure paid off an scored a couple of minutes before the end of the first half 1:0.

South came out even more competitively after the break and Fletcher Burton showed some fantastic skills with the ball appearing to stick on his stick. Adam Hopewell and Norman Buttery were also on their A game and between them, the midfielders gave South’s attacker’s, Paul Hollingworth and Ken Shapland a lot of service.

James Fildes took opportunities to inject the ball into the opposition’s D for Paul to convert but despite some great efforts by him, Cole and Ken, no goal resulted.

During one attack, a storm of shots - one from Cole, three from Paul and one from Ken which went just the wrong side of the post didn’t result in a goal.

With around ten minutes to go James sent an accurate pass through to Ken Shapland who spun round and took an instinctive shot which cleared their keeper. 1:1.

South’s defence came under further pressure and despite Simon Recaldin’s keeping and the defence rebutting many attempts from Nottingham’s particularly skilful attackers, Nottingham scored in the last second of the game. 2:1.

South were deflated by conceding what would have been their first league point but their performance was congratulated by their captain, Tony Ellis, who’d had the opportunity to watch every goal from the side line.