A great effort on Mother's day

Heading down on a glorious spring morning with a mixed Boys and Girls U12 team to take on top of league Bournemouth, we know that it was going to be a tough old game and we needed luck to favour us. A massive thank you to all the mothers for letting the children play on Mother's day and a particular thank you to the 5 girls who stepped up and enabled us to get a team out so that we did not have to forfeit the game.

Unfortunately luck was not on our side, and 15 minutes before we were due to leave one of our two available regular backs, William Taylor, was being sick, meaning our regular back five were reduced to one, Tom Duffield. Josie, Elizibeth, Ben and William Tavener stepped in to form the new defensive line with Tom and did a wonderful job. Josie had hurt her back in a rollerskating accident the day before and was not as mobile as she could have been, as was in quiet a lot of pain, but was totally resolute she was going to play so as to not let the team down. Tom also took a bad hit to the ankle in the second half, but too valiantly played on.

Despite these challenges everyone played their socks off but fitness and tiredness showed later in the game - not helped by the clocks going forwards an hour and a few of the players clearly tired from late nights no doubt watch comic relief.

The first quarter was amazingly close with plenty of chances at both ends being valiantly saved and if luck had been on our side we would have been a couple of goals up and the result may have been totally different. As it happened Bournemouth managed to get themselves in to the lead and the Andover team started to doubt that they could win which, as often happens, built the confidence of the Bournemouth boys who were then able to build on this and take the match away from Andover in the third quarter.

In the end it was a great effort all round, from a hastily assembled team were many players were having to play out of their normal positions. The fact that the game, if not the scoreline, was so close is a real testament to the players. Well done everyone.