U15 South slip up on Whetstone's slope

U15 South went looking for their 4th win on the bounce, but ended up sharing the points with a resistant Whetstone who were trying to stop a run of defeats.

Sometimes you forget just how great it is to play at home and just how good the pitches and facilities are. Playing at Whetstone was a stark reminder! We played on their only 11-a-side pitch, which is on the side of a small mountain in Finchley, well at least the slope felt like a small mountain. The gradient runs from left to right and like most pitches without an irrigation system, it was very dry and more sand than grass, in fact a deckchair and a sun umbrella wouldn't have looked out of place and in some areas it looked like the meeting of 2 tectonic plates based on the cracks.

Knowing how to play 'the slope' is a definite home advantage and it took the 1st half for South to work it out. Thankfully, Whetstone were in damage limitation mode having lost a few games on the spin and played very defensively trying to hit South on the counter attack. Gravity played its part in proceedings with the ball and players congregating on the lowlands side of the pitch which was very congested and neither team were able to make much progress. The result for both teams was a very uneventful 1st half ending 0-0, with not much action to report.

The half time team talk was all about how to play on a slope but I think the South players had their ear-plugs in as the 2nd half progressed much the same as the 1st half had ended. The only action worthy of note was one of the rare occasions that South worked the ball out on the highlands side of the pitch and with a combination of uncongested passes, a slide through ball to Luca gave him a great chance to break the deadlock with a curling left foot shot to the far post. The keeper was beaten and the curl looked perfect for a top corner finish, but then an unwelcome gust of wind straightened out the near perfect shot, it hit the post and bounced safely away from goal. 0-0 the final score and it certainly felt like 2 points dropped for South rather than a point gained as we approach the 'squeaky bum time' point in the season.