Men's 2nd XI Vs Barton 3

A chilly day with a windchill of -50 greeted South for the clash against Barton. 

South started slow ( not helped by Mr Willey rocking up on the starting whistle, sorry chaps)  with the youthful Barton forwards testing South and it looked like the South defence were in for a tough match. Barton were moving the ball well and a run down the right hand side found Gary standing in at LB struggling to keep up with the swiftness of the Barton attack. Errors in the D gave Barton the opening goal with only 5 mins on the clock. This was a real wake up call for South who after the restart focused on possession stringing some nice passes together and settling in to the game plan. A chance for the skipper in the d who’s volley (someone’s been watching the Olympic qualifiers.) was gloved down by the keeper.  Great work form Kai and Stevie in the middle worked the ball into the D for Ben to force a foul giving South a short corner. Ben calmly converted to make the score to 1-1.  
Will having a storming game at right back popped the ball on angry young man from Burton’s shin who dropped like a footballer, he continued to roll around on the floor and in the process abused our wonderful umpire Tom to earn himself a yellow card (should have been a red). The opposition were down to 10 men with 10 minutes left on the clock.  South looked confident on the ball and pressed the Burton defence but despite Mr Willey’s best efforts to reduce the Burton team even further we couldn’t capitalise on the extra player and the whistle blew for the interval. 1-1 and all to play for.  

The 2nd half began and South were clearly the team on top. Ben sitting back in the middle working short passes to Stevie, wide to Robbie and Dan. Burton weren’t Beaton and were quick on the break giving Brian and Willey a few squeaky moments but nothing the old men couldn’t handle.  

South scored again with a bit of a luck in the D as Stevie’s shot was defected past the keeper by a Burton defender 2-1. Burton were still in the game grabbing a goal back after a quick break to make the score 2-2.  South went again with Kai beating up the older Burton midfield driving into the D passing to Ben with a reverse dink looking for a foot found Alex who smashed it top bins.  3-2 
The fourth goal came from Gary steaming in from the left with a trademark top of the D strike beating the keeper on the near post. 4-2  

South looked smokin hot with some glorious hockey being played and we looked dangerous every time we had the ball, unfortunately the final whistle blew just as a Burton were awarded a short corner. The strike was saved by a diving Tommy (who had an awesome game) but it squirted out to the angry young man from Burton who buried it past Mr Willey foolishly stepping off the post.  

A good win from South 2’s to put them 4th in the league. We go again next week with a challenging game against Players.