U14's NEFC 1-2 Ruislip Rangers B
The U14's fielded a much changed side welcoming four new signings Neama Balal, Sam White, Michael Foran and Frankie Fagan and also a re-vamped team line up which resulted in a much improved performance over our last game vs Larkspur.
This game was played out in very hot conditions and the boys from both sides did well in the circumstances. Eagles soaked up a bit of early pressure and dealt with Ruislip attacks well, eventually settling into the game and creating chances of our own. Jamil was causing problems for Ruislip up front and the midfield of Michael, Carl, Marshy and Abdu were getting well stuck into the game, an early break away resulted in a ball being cleared off the Ruislip goal line from a good jamil run as he cut the ball back from a very tight angle. A break did come for us mid way through the half when the ball broke out to the edge of the Ruislip penalty area and carl seeing his opportunity took it with a well struck finish. After much end to end  we finished the first half still holding the lead.
As the second half wore on the heat was becoming more of a problem to both sides and Ruislip started to make the better of it creating numerous chances one of which produced a fantastic save from new goalkeeper Sam diving to his left to parry away a very hard strike. Our two centre halves Dawid and Koshin with help from neama and Alex (who was having a tremendous game) held strong with help from Carl and Marshy in midfield against rising Ruislip pressure and that pressure told fifteen minutes from time when Ruislip equalised from a corner in a goalmouth scramble. We battled well and tried to force the game back but although we failed to break the Ruislip offside trap a few times fitness was starting to tell in the heat with a number of our players playing their first games and having no pre-season training the game was swinging our opponents way, and the winner game two minutes from time after a lapse in concentration an unmarked Ruislip player found himself in space edge of the area and finished well.
The lad's were naturally gutted to lose after leading for such a long period in the game and to criticise them would have been extremely harsh as they had put in a strong performance against a good side, and they will surely feel better about this result as the season wears on as Ruislip will do well this year and had already started the season with a big win. I personally felt that the improvements today showed that the team was willing to learn from past mistakes and showed most importantly for me a great kindred team spirit, yes this was definitely a big step in the right direction.
Special mentions today for Alex, Dawid, Koshin, Sam, Carl, Marshy and Jamil for their excellent performances today and a big well done to the rest of the boys also for a sterling display and hard work.
Next week I am trying to arrange a friendly as we have a free week.
Brendon