Wirral 1st Team v Kings Chester

In our first fixture of the year against Kings Chester, who are the North West regional winners, we started very well after a good warm up.  On a wet day it made a very good looking pitch play well.  The first five minutes saw a great chance fall at the feet of Davies who didn't connect well enough and his shot was saved.  His replacement after 8 minutes was Lyness who linked up superbly with Evans to play a great one two together around the Kings defence and score one of my contenders for team goal of the season in which Evans slotted his shot into the right corner,

1-0.

As the half went on the Kings side came into the game, but with excellent organisation from Harvey and Frank the Wirral team defended well getting in front of their men and in possession of the ball making good passes.  Excellent battling games from Eastwood and Taylor enabled us to create chances through the skills of Bush and Riddiough predominantly down the right.  As changes were made throughout the game the quality of hockey was maintained and Crawford who replaced Walker stopped on the line from the Kings short corner! Only to put the ball back into the mixer for the Kings player to fire a powerful reverse stick shot above Smith and into the roof!

As the second half progressed we kept breaking forward and with some neat hockey down the left between the ever improving Gawith, who linked well with Bush the ball made its way across the dee off the keeper and to Riddiough who scored with an excellent reverse stick shot into the net!  'Happy days'  There were many very good performances from this great team.  The main thing that impressed me was the fact that we played some excellent hockey that was superbly organised on the pitch by the engines of the team Harvey, Frank and Taylor!

Well done guys, beating a Kings Chester side who are through to a North West final is an brilliant achievement and shows what progress and potential this side has when you put it all together!!

AJM