U15 South get back to winning ways by taming the Edmonton Lions

U15 South got back to winning ways with a mid-week fixture against Edmonton Rangers Lions on Harvester's pitch 3, on a wet April evening.

Playing at home and back to enjoying flat, grassed pitches, Harvesters U15 South took on Edmonton Rangers for their first mid-week fixture of the season restart. The skies were dark gray and the 6pm KO was delayed by the late arrival of the opposition team minibus, having got stuck in traffic on the drive from North London to St. Albans. As we kicked off, the rain started to fall, as did the temperature.

The first half was quite uneventful finishing 0-0 but with 2 memorable events for different reasons. Harvesters thought they had scored half way through the 40 mins, with a fierce drive from Luca that hit the underside of the bar and bounced down into the mouth of the goal. The players thought it had crossed the line but the Edmonton linesman thought differently and the score remained 0-0. The other memorable event was the referee warning the opposition manager that he would be sent off if he fiercely contested another decision! South never really got going in the 1st half and for all the frantic activity, there was very little to show for it when they came in for the half-time team talk.

The second half was a different story. Harvesters started to use the flanks, kept the ball on the ground and started to pull the Edmonton defence apart with slick passing interchanges. The deadlock was broken with an excellent goal - Angus, playing in central defence ran box to box, exchanging passes with midfield and attacking players along the way and eventually slotting the ball hard and low to make it 1-0. With this, Harvesters started to ramp up the pressure and took control of the game, the next 3 goals came from similar passing moves, first was Ollie, who really enjoyed his goal celebration, then Jack and Adam. 3 out of the first 4 goals were assisted by our 'returning to form' striker Luca, but for all his generosity for others, he struggled to find the target for himself, even after Max W had drawn the keeper and the defenders to the right and cut back the ball for Luca in front of goal, but the ball bobbled as he was about to strike it and it inexplicably sailed over the bar from close range. Luca's perseverance finally paid off with 10 minutes to go, he found the back of the net with a brilliant finish and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The game ended 5-0 which was a little unfair on Edmonton after such a stoic first half performance and we move on to the weekend's double-header against Pro Football London Magic.