Coming off the back of an excellent 3-0 win against Radford from a step above, we travelled up the road to Clay Cross to play the local team who were runners up in their league last year.

CLAY CROSS TOWN 5 MICKLEOVER FC RESERVES 4

On a drizzly bleak austere evening, we saw a terrific game of football including a goal so good it was reminiscent of the great Carlos Alberto in Mexico 1972.

Clay Cross started well with attacks down both wings with their pacey wide men and we did well to keep them at bay, but went 1-0 down after a short pass didn’t reach Clinton Morrison and despite a couple of good tackles the ball broke to a Clay Cross player who did a grubber into the corner of the net.

Rather than go through all the incidents including great goals from Surfafel Tefera, Larrel and new boy Archie, I’ll concentrate on two game-changing incidents.

As the half-hour approached and we were getting into the ascendancy through structure and passing, a Clay Cross player was seen to be lying prostrate in their box just on the penalty box. The ball was near the touchline on our attacking right. The game stopped and there was a wee bit of altercation with the usual intrusive pushes and finger-pointing.

During this time the Clay Cross player remained decumbent – it looked serious!  The referee obviously didn’t see what happened and began his investigations by interviewing the first witness the far side linesman. “Didn’t see nufink guv” was the response so the next port of call was to the far far far away linesman. The interrogation took place fairly close to where we were on the touchline, and there was a lot of nodding and head shaking so it looked like the probing was going to provide a result. I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be good as whilst the first interrogation was going on, one of their subs – who was sitting in the dugout with his 2 well built managers in front of him was expounding on what had happened. “A Mickleover player punched our player off the ball with a right hook.” 

This is verbatum what the linesman repeated to me as we went off at half time. If the linesman had seen what had happened he would have been waving his flag like one of the demented at the Nuremberg Rally! The result was that our complement was reduced to 10.

What followed was a superb display of positional awareness and commitment. The shape of the team was scintillating with Clinton being the glue that held us all together.

The second incident was as good a goal that you would have seen for many a season. Playing the lone man up top Surf broke away from the halfway line past a defender and drove on in a central position to the goal, as he pushed on he attracted 3 defenders to him both full backs and the guy who had been comatose 10 minutes earlier. 

What this did was to leave a space on their left flank for us to exploit and boy oh f’n boy did Clarence Clark exploit it. He sprinted circa 53 yards and when he was spotted by Surf, the ball was rolled (a la Pele) into the path of the marauding central defender from Phoenix Arizona who took a deft touch before dispatching the ball to its place of rest with a thunderous drive!

Although we lost on the scoreline we won on the gameplay as they scored their last 2 goals from corners, after we had to take off Gus Williamson as the drizzle was messing with his dreads.

 Also of note is that Kiran Sanghera our keeper got caught by a tackle fairly early on and was in pain for most of the game.

An interesting aside was the linesman’s vision and perception when Josh Satchwell was bearing down on goal and was stronger than the defender, who then fell, with the linesman giving a foul against Josh, indicating that he had used and elbow. If Josh had done so, the linesman couldn’t have seen it because the defender was in his way!!!!!!

 

DUNKIRK FC 1 V MICKLEOVER RESERVES 1

Dunkirk came out of the blocks well and forced a couple of early corners. However the well organised defending set up repelled them and although Tom Smith in our goal made a couple of stops they were nothing to really bother a keeper of his stature.

After that flurry we started to get into the game, with Dunkirks favourite way to retain possession was to fall down – the number 6 was particularly adept at this tactic.

We should have scored the opener but their keeper made a good save from Jude Ayetine in a one on one situation – if only the keeper had known about Jude’s wicked right hook we would have scored because he would have shat himself.

Dunkirk opened the scoring after we gave the ball away with a Hollywood pass that turned into a nightmare on Elm Street. The problem with these passes that don’t come off is that invariably four of your teammates get caught the wrong side of the ball.

Not long after we had to make a couple of changes. Kyle thought his back was sore and Jude hadn’t punched anyone for 30 minutes.

Down 1-0 at half time we had to be resolute, stand strong and defend like dervishes.

The defence at this time was immense restricting Dunkirk to some long shots and Tom only had one save second half.

We got an equaliser after some sustained pressure with Surf finishing with aplomb.

We made some more changes and the defence stood tall and resolute and on the attack, we could have had a couple with young Finn Barker skinning the centre half like a haddock before making a great connection, hitting a shot millimetres wide of the corner flag. Great skills form the young man.

We now move forward to the league opener at Linby Miners. Glad we play them first because they will get older the longer the season goes,

I have to thank Aaron Hayer for a fabulous job setting up all of these games and his great work at training.

 

We are still needing funding and please if you can go on the website

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/david-mackenzie-54

D.Mac
Mickleover F.C.
Reserves Manager

by Peter Scherer

It’s not only been Mickleover FC first team that’s been busy over the last week, the reserves have been out and about too.

They started a week ago with a 3-0 defeat at Newark, before earning a 0-0 draw away to Cromford & Wirksworth on Wednesday evening.

Thursday should have been at Kimberley, but the weather intervened.

So it was off to Nottingham again last Saturday and they came as 2-0 over Radford.

Next up are two matches due tonight, one is at Mackworth FC and another at Clay Cross, so plenty of action before the seasons commences.

 

by Peter Scherer

After a win again Derby United and a defeat last weekend to Ilkeston Town under 21’s, Mickleover FC reserves were back in action last night against Worksop Town under 21’s at the St George’s Complex near Sheffield.

It was a mixture of youth and experience in the team line-up, with manager John McGrath in midfield.

Worksop started at a pace and had their first attack headed away by Clarence Clark, before their first shot went wide of the post after five minutes.

It was a fairly even first 10 minutes with a smattering of free kicks for both sides. But Mickleover’s first chance came when Josh Satchwell put Fin Barker through and his effort was cleared by the keeper.

A few minutes later it was Satchwell on the attack again, trying to chip over the advancing keeper.

Sports attacks were becoming more regular after some Worksop pressure and after Barker fired at the keeper, Ted Stevenson shot just wide.

With Clark, Marcus Calderone and Elliot Murray working well at the back, Stevenson Bobby Battison both got breaks, just losing out with a one on ones with the keeper.

But 23 minutes in there a scare for Sports keeper Charlie Bryan, when Calderone’s back pass was short and intercepted by a Worksop striker, whose shot hit the post.

Tom Eccleshall was the next Sports player to try his luck, firing over the bar after a free-kick had been cleared.

It continued to be end to end play and when Satchwell put a good ball through to Barker. The striker’s shot went across the face of the goal, just inches short of an opening goal.

The midfield feed with McGrath at the controls began to have more success seeking out Satchwell and Barker. Satchwell had a collision with the keeper as he chased hard and shortly afterwards had a header just wide of the far post.

But on 43 minutes Bryan came out from his goal but missed the ball as he bounced , leaving Worksop with a clear shot into an empty net for the lead.

Sports came charging back to try and grab an equaliser before half time, Satchwell was through but couldn’t get the space to place his shot.

After Eccleshall picked up a yellow card, Jude Ayetaine went close. But just before the half time whistle Bryan pulled out a fine save to his right from a Worksop free-kick.

There were a few substitutions for the second half, but Sports were straight on the attack, with Ayetaine placing a good ball into the box, from which Satchwell almost connected.

Worksop soon retaliated with Bryan forced to make two diving saves.

But after 55 minutes the equaliser finally came, after Ayetaine collected the ball in the box with his back to goal, after shielding well from the Worksop defence he swivelled and fired into the corner of the net.

Sports sub Junior was battling his through the Worksop defence and receiving constant hassle, but looking dangerous on every attack.

After 80 minutes Satchwell got his just reward with a well taken second goal for Sports from inside the box.

Only couple of minutes later however Worksop were level again, after a corner dropped nicely for a Worksop striker.

There should have been a penalty for Sports however, when Ayetaine was held back by two defenders, but the referee waved away appeals.

Bryan had to pull off a few more late saves from some random Worksop shots and a couple of free kicks, but 2-2 was probably a fair result.

The Sports team had a much more flowing and threatening second half though, which bodes well as the competitive season approaches.

by Peter Scherer

The Sports reserve team began the preparation for their first forthcoming season in the Central Midlands League Division South, with a friendly match against Midland Regional Alliance Premier Division side Derby Singh Brothers at Rolls Royce.

Dave Mackenzie and Aaron Hayer had the majority of last year’s team available plus a few new faces.

Academy keeper Tom Smith started, with Fin Davies, Gus Williamson, Elliot Murray, Ben Lewin, Tom Watson, Surafel Tefera, Jacob Edge-Lucas, Fin Barker, Brodie Carter and Josh Satchwell.

It was played as three-thirds rather than two halves, but after an even opening 10 minutes with a fair share of free kicks to both sides, Singh Bros began to go for a shoot on site strategy rather than close in play.

Sports had the first corner after about seven minutes, but  Barker’s cross wasn’t cleared and  Davies was fouled, but Tefera put the free-kick over the bar.

Singh’s went close too but their shot was cleared by Williamson, before Sports retaliated with a shot from Barker well saved by Singh’s keeper.

Tefera was on the receiving end of a couple of reckless tackles, but Singh’s strikers determination continued to cause problems to Sports defence.

There was a fairly fortunate free kick for Singh’s on the 20 minute mark. The kick went to the right of the Sports wall and was buried into the far corner of Smith’s net to give Singh’s the lead.

Singh’s went close again from the kick-off before Satchwell slid in by the far post and was close to grabbing an equaliser.

Just before the first 30 minutes were up both side had chances, with Singh’s firing just over the bar and Murray having a shot blocked from Lewin’s corner.

There were a number of changes for the second third, including Charlie Cotton, Clarence Clark and Joe Hopkins.

Hopkins was quickly on the attack but couldn’t find the space for a clear shot. But some heavy tackling forced the referee to reach for his book too.

As Sports started to push forward more as a team, Hopkins had a one on one with the Singh keeper, and missed out on a scoring chance by a whisker.

It was still 0-1 as the sides prepared for the final third and more changes were made.

Most of you got to play for 45 minutes, some got more

said Hayer as they kicked off again.

Kiran Sanghera was in goal and one of his first jobs was to face a Singh Bros penalty, which they duly scored.

But Ben Lewin pulled one back in the closing stages scoring direct from a corner kick.

The final third showed the progress made on the night as the Sports players began to gel and threatened Singh’s penalty area on more than one occasion.

Sanghera had to make one blocking save, as Singh’s continued to shoot at will, while Sports had a shot just over the bar before the final whistle.

A promising start and lots more to come.

Sports 1-2 Singh Brothers.