29Sep.Darlington 1sts 3 - Durham City 3rds 2

The second game of the season meant that we played with a lot more togetherness. Darlington however started the game looking more dangerous than us. The Durham defence was put under pressure but we made a good job of keeping Darlington at bay. But midway through the half when Durham conceded a short corner, Darlington showed great early season technique and slipped the ball from the top of the D back to the injector who had crept onto the post from where he was able to use the power of the pass to nick it into the net. Durham came back well from that setback and the rest of the first half was well contested. Durham continued to hold their own until another short corner was conceded shortly before half time. This time the defence were ready for the pass back to the injector but were outfoxed by a pass that went to the opposite post where a clever touch from Darlington guided the ball into the goal. Durham hadn’t done an awful lot wrong but found ourselves 2-0 down at half time. During the half time teamtalk we were bale to remind ourselves of the positives we had exhibited, and we came out at the start of the second half looking much more dangerous. Our hard work was at last rewarded when a good short corner injection from Miles Hudson was well stopped and struck by Ryan Grey directly into the corner of the Darlington goal. Durham continued to apply pressure and created some great flowing hockey moving the ball from defence to midfield to attack, with great overlapping support play. And it was one of these movements that created the equalizer, when the ball was taken to the byeline on the left of the Darlington goal before a jinking run along the line gave the opportunity for a shot on goal which was initially saved but only to the feet of Durham for a great follow-up. All square at 2-2 and the comeback was nearly complete. However the lack of subs on the Durham bench started to take its toll and although we were still making good moves we began to be stretched in all areas of the pitch. It was a counter attack which proved our undoing when a well struck ball seemed to allude all of our defenders as well as all the Darlington strikers only for it to trickle to the far post where it was gratefully snapped up by the most surprised goalscorer of the day. There was no coming back for Durham after that and a valiant effort yielded no reward in points. Yet the team left the pitch far from dejected, they had been involved in a great game which had seen some great periods of play from Durham, and to again quote Ben Coleman “that was an epic game”