A dry, bright Sunday afternoon saw Whitstable Town U11A take on Woodnesborough Youth FC U11 in their first clash in the East Kent League. After last week’s frustrations the coaches had given the players a pre-match pep talk about leaving their Fortnite discussions to the end of the game and upping their efforts. This certainly seemed to do the trick as the team were more alert, more accurate in their passing and played with a faster tempo this week.

George, who was always on his toes, pressuring the defenders, was rewarded with Whitstable’s first goal in the 16th minute. This lifted the team and was followed by two further goals in the first half, one from Ollie and one from Archie, both set up by Rhys, who was playing in an unfamiliar role in midfield. Charlie, Bradley, Archie and Jasper were all strong in midfield, moving the ball around with ease, and winning one on ones almost every time. Our defensive line of combinations of Zac, Josh, Luca and Joe worked with the offside rule well and the opposition were caught offside on a number of occasions. It was good to see the children working well together on this and seeing their hard work and concentration on the game paying off. Thomas worked hard in goal and in the second half came well off his line to take the ball off an opposition player on the edge of his box – another pleasing performance and contender for man of the match.

Twenty four minutes into the second half Joe scored a fabulous (birthday) goal from 30 yards out, that the superb Woodnesborough goalkeeper had no chance of saving. This was followed one minute later by Bradley scoring his first goal for the team. This lead to a couple of minutes of pressure on the opposition keeper with further goal attempts from Rhys and Jasper (who arguably had his best game of the season so far with some great tackles and passes throughout the game and was another contender for man of the match). The last goal for Whitstable was slotted home by Ollie in the 59th minute.

Man of the match went to Rhys, who returned after missing the last couple of games, for working very hard in an unfamiliar role in midfield, assisting in 2 goals and very nearly scoring himself. Coaches Danny and Sarah were very proud of the team today, how they worked hard for each other and continued to battle right to the end of the game.