Cedars and Wealdstone Friendlies (home) – 19-May-18

May 21, 2018 | match reports

Cedars and Wealdstone Friendlies (home) 19-May-18

YELLOWS (report by Richard)

We played two matches today at the Meriden, well refereed by Bill and Will, as we welcomed the Cedars and Wealdstone teams. Wealdstone coming in late after drop outs by first Barnet RIP and then Bedford.  Cedars had a slightly weakened team due to last minute drop outs, the Wealdstone team included the Steves Dyett and Moss, plus Andy Jenkins and Phil Marchand, together with Ronnie, a strong QPR forward.

Glenn organised the Orange Watford and Richard the Yellows.

YELLOWS (Average Age 60 & 9 mon)

We played a 1:3:3 formation as shown below in 2 x 26 min games (13 min halves).

Julian Knight (GK)
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Andy Roads
Jonathan Sinfield
Malcolm Wright
Richard Manning
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Alan Cutter
Paul Vinton
Steve Morris
Tony Bartolo

We were fortunate and appreciative to once again have Michael Adams come along as match day coach and try to make us more organised. You’ll have to ask him how that went!!!

Game 1 was against the Cedars and our notorious slow start resulted in some great saves from Julian being required and the wood work saving us once.  The second half was much better with improved passing.  A penalty for Cedars stepping into the area allowed Steve Morris to put us one up.  After that we played with more fluidity and a lovely move from the back along the left wing and into the centre with almost one touch football allowed Paul to score a second.  Although Cedars hit the outside of the woodwork again, we ran out 2-0 winners.

Game 2 was against the stronger Wealdstone team.  Michael encouraged us to make a lot of noise and call to each other much more in his pre-match talk, he wanted us to be much more vocal.  One minute and 36 secs later (of silence!) we were 2-0 down, couple of wonder strikes from Ronnie.  Andy tried to keep him quiet but was soon advised by referee Will that he had tried to tackle from behind twice and a 3rd would result in sin bin.  We did gathered ourselves and for the next 21 minutes played much better and with patience.  A lovely goal forged by a series of one-twos between Andy and Richard resulted in the Andy firing home to bring it to 2-1.  As we pressed for a winner a goal in the final minute for Wealdstone on the break away gave them a 3-1 victory.

Man-of-the-match = Julian Knight (yes its becoming a common theme for the keeper to win this award!)

Crowd =1 (Ged!).  Total WWFC players, coaches, referees, spectators = 25, almost half the club!  Once could make an argument that Andy Jenkins was our 48th WWFC player to participate in the Friendly team but  I will prefer to wait till he wears a Watford kit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ORANGES (report by Glenn)

 

 

 

Hi all

 

 

 

The Orange squad was……..
Alan Read

 

Glenn Cato

 

Graham Bell

 

Howard Groves

 

Kevin Schmid (England number 1)

 

Pat Morrissey

 

Steve Harrington

 

Tony Beal

 

 

 

Unfortunately a late withdrawal through injury was Gordon Sexton.

 

 

 

Our first Game was against Wealdstone containing four of our members!!.

 

 

 

Steve Dyett very kindly arranged a Wealdstone team to fill in for the 2 teams that had pulled out.

 

 

 

Steve stated he was struggling to get a goal keeper so we agreed to share Kevin for a half each. Kevin played for Wealdstone in the first half. Pat drew the short straw and was our keeper for the first half.

 

 

 

As per all the match reports and Richard mentioned Watford ALWAYS get off to a slow start!!.

 

 

 

The first half ended with ourselves 3-0 down.

 

 

 

Second half we had Kevin in goal and started on the front foot with all the play being in the Wealdstone half.

 

 

Our pressure soon turned into a goal. A superb right foot strike from Howard got us on the scoreboard.

 

 

 

Than the question of Wealdstone did not have a keeper!!.

 

 

 

Well the guy who went in goal for the second half made some outstanding saves and kept Wealdstone in the winning position. A shame we had all the play in the second half but could not turn it into goals especially with the performance from the keeper.

 

 

 

Final Score 1-3.

 

 

Second Game we played Cedars.

 

 

 

This time we had Kevin in goal for the whole game!!

 

 

 

The team played well scoring some fine individual and well worked team goals.

 

 

 

A special mention to Tony who scored a Messi type goal who weaved through the defence and calmly placed it in the corner.

 

 

 

Final Score 4-0 scorers Glenn 2,Howard and Tony’s special one.

 

 

 

The games were played in the right spirit in the sunshine and well refereed by our dynamic duo of Bill and Will.

 

 

 

Thank You.