U9’s came home as CHAMPION’S! A massive well done to Chloe and the lads from our current U9’s on winning the Haggerston Castle Tournament 2015, another great achievement in a remarkable season. This group of coaches and players are a credit to our club in so many ways – special mention to Adrian Dawson and his team, for providing great training sessions and a fantastic environment for this set of youngsters to flourish. Mentioning all parents – without devoted parents things wouldn’t be possible – just the small matter of the cup final on the 17th.
U13’s last game of the season at home vs Polton All-stars who had won all of their previous 22 games and won the league by a country mile. Today was not about the result, we just wanted to give a good account of ourselves.
If we’re honest, the first half was poor, conceding sloppy goals but second half, the lads upped their game and gave a good account of themselves. We also managed to score two past them, not many have don’t that his season, so well done lads! MOTM was joint: Ethan Stoker & Logan Sanderson Howes – Scarborough tournament next, and then re-group to go again next season.
The U23’s faced Washington on Sunday at home who are just one place below us in the league. The squad was depleted today with players on holiday or injured. Washington started the better, closing Aycliffe down, they could have been 3 nil up within the first 20 minutes, but great saves by Williamson and the crossbar coming to Aycliffe’s rescue.
You can only ride your luck for so long and Washington’s striker finished well into the bottom corner to give the visitors a deserved lead. We managed to get ourselves back into the game when Taylors strike was fumbled by the keeper and Winwood was the first to react tapping the ball home from close range.
The score remained 1-1 until just before half time when the visitors scored again to go into half time 1-2 lead. The team were told at half time that we needed to get both our wing backs on the ball and start to close their players down far more quickly. The second half started and became a tad feisty with some tasty tackles from both teams.
Aycliffe drew level when Washington centre back misplaced a back pass into the path of Slatcher who stroked the ball home. Aycliffe then made a substitution with Allenby replacing Wickens with Tallentrie dropping to centre half, Taylor moving into midfield and Allenby partnering Howe up front.
Aycliffe created a couple of decent chances to score again but we failed to take our chances. Washington dug deep and kept Aycliffe at bay and the game ended in a 2-2 draw. Overall today’s performance was below the standard Aycliffe are capable of but on a positive the draw keeps stretches our unbeaten run to 10 games and go to Washington next week for what I am sure will be a tasty game. M.O.T.M to Christian Taylor, well done Christian.
