Neil vs Mike - Vol. 1.

Firstly I'd like to wish all at the club a very Happy New Year.

First official league game back after Christmas and it was Mike and I who were unexpectedly thrown against each other as captains by Gary. It seemed that there were no other league pairings applicable for the night.

I won the coin toss and chose to have first pick over the extra man as I was testing my theory of the extra man not always being the better advantage; how right I was!

Game started pretty evenly; myself Ross and Doc keeping things simple and controlled at the back, with the 3 in midfield/forward positions creating the spaces in the middle to pick the pass. With us playing this way we seemed to dominate the run of play for the first half of the game minutes, breaking the deadlock on or around the 10 minute mark. The yellows did put some passes beyond our defensive line but Geoff was quick off his line to gather/clear the ball. A bit of controversy followed when Gary was "fouled" by Woodsy in the midst of the game, clash of knees? I'll have to do an Arsene Wenger and say "I did not see it"... either way, well in Woodsy!
In the second half of the game (around 6-0 at this point), Mike's yellows did start to put us under more pressure, and with myself still carrying a bit of a hamstring strain, we did have to defend in numbers. Alas, with some fine saves from Geoff and good counter attacks, we managed to actually score more goals and finish the match at 10 nil.

Coming off the field I actually thought it was 9, but was corrected to 10 when players shared their scoring stats for the night.

I guess Mike IS the BFG after all, giving me such a generous head-start on aggregate. Now I'm guessing a Moyes-esque Defensive display is in order for the return leg. Good luck Mike.

Man of the match is a hard one to call with all of the Whites putting in a great work rate in such a high scoring game. As much as I would like to give MOM to Woodsy for his tackle on my brother, I'll have to give it to Dave Owen for causing the trouble up the Yellow's end of the field. Once again thanks to all of my team and hope the good football carries on throughout 2017.