back on the winning trail

coming on the back of 2 defeats the team needed a result from this match to break a losing habit, and our captain, Alan Dawson had come up with a cunning plan - bolster the middle and leave James Cowan to plough a lonely furrow up front on his lonesome. Following Alans team talk we were treated to a speech of rousing inspiration from Andy Mc, and stepped onto the pitch with a noticeable air of optimism. However we knew we were up against a team of young students, and it came as no surprise when the game started at a high tempo with lots of fast running and fast accurate passes coming from our opposition. We stuck to our tasks and seemed to be more solid in our new look formation, and were all working very hard for each other. Gradually we came more and more into the game and were putting more pressure on the HIld Bede defence. Jamsie had been doing a good job of holding up the ball and eventually his tenacity paid off. He colected the ball in the D and hit the ball on the turn into the bottom right corner - apparently it hit the backboard before the keeper even saw it ( Jamsie's words ). Hild Bede were stirred into action and bore down on our defence. Chris Russell in goal had been playing extremely well and had already made a couple of glorious saves, but could do nothing when a shot was massively deflected by our own player into the goal. We went into half time level 1-1. The second half followed a similair pattern to the first with Durham putting in maximum effort for the team cause and holding Hild Bede at bay whilst managing to mount enough attacks of our own to look threatening. Praise should go to the 2 subs Andy Mc and Simon Campbell who rotated seamlessly off the bench to allow the midfield to maintain the constant closing down and tracking of runners. Our tenacity in defence had been rewarded so far but a coming together of one of the Hild Bede players and Alan Dawson saw a bit of claret spilt on the pitch and Alan crouching down spitting bits of tooth out. Sadly for Durham this meant an early departure for our captain and a bit of re-arranging required in the Durham defence. However Durham continued with the superb teamwork and began to come more into the ascendency and continued pressure on the opposition D led to a short corner. A great injection from Paul Rockliffe set up Jamsie who smashed the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal; 2-1. The pendulum again swung the way of the students and with a sense of deja-vu a shot on goal was deflected by a Durham defender past the helpless keeper; 2-2. The clock was ticking down and Durham kept up the high energy levels they had demonstrated throughout and just as it looked as though both teams were going to have to settle for a share of the points a quality ball into the D found Jamsie who stood up the keeper and slipped Olly Pike in on goal. Olly showed reat composure and flicked the ball into the back of the net; 3-2. The game restarted with just 1 minute remaining and the students surged down on the defence. Durham held out and managed to give the injured captain a 3-2 win in a well contested game.