U13 South v Belstone FC

Our 2nd win of the season came on yet another wet and cold day (I hope this isn't a pattern for the season!) with a classic 'game of 2 halves'.

Early in the morning, the opposition manager had phoned me, as he was considering cancelling the game due to lack of players, which is a familiar problem for the U13 South team so far this season, however on this occassion, we expected to have 11 players available, so I was delighted when I got a message to say Belstone were going to play the game. Just before the warm up I got a call to say that one of our strikers would be late and so unfortunately we started the game with just 10, coincidentally Belstone had the same number of players for the kick off.

The 1st half was evenly contested but with Harvesters marginally on top, making the better chances and passing the ball with more freedom than Belstone. Once Jason has locked on to the target we broke the deadlock scoring first to go 1-0 up with a nicely placed 1-on-1 finish. Just before half time, Belstone leveled the score with a long range effort that beat Dan into his top left corner, then almost from the Harvesters kick off, Belstone stole possession and in a subsequent goal mouth scramble that Harvesters failed to clear, Belstone found themselves in front just before the half time whistle (1-2)

Luckily for the U13 South team, our missing player arrived just in time for the 2nd half of the game and with a full complement of 11, Harvesters started to turn up the pressure with a series of well worked goals, which incuded 2 more for Jason to record his first Harvesters hat-trick and 2 from Luca running through from midfield and finishing with a goal line tap in for Michael to make it 6 just on the final whistle. Although Belstone had several 2nd half chances including an excellent 1 on 1 opportunity that was wasted, Harvesters midfield and defence did just enough to keep a clean sheet for the 2nd half and record another 3 points in the league, despite tired, cold legs from the heavy pitch and wintery conditions.