Match Reports

Feb.4th. League Div.1.
Newton FC 0 – 2 Eagle FC.
(HT 0-2).
Battling display brings no reward!
Newton have tended to shoot themselves in the foot by conceding late goals in recent games.They corrected that this time,but managed a couple of early blunders instead! In truth, from then on Newton dug deep and manfully held their high flying opponents for the remainder of the match!
The game started and ended in bright, sunny conditions, a stark contrast to last weeks’ gale force, icy wind ! Newton were looking quietly composed for the opening minutes, but this suddenly changed when the defence failed to clear a difficult ball in the area. The ball broke straight to Eagle and another pass to a striker seemingly in an offside position did the trick.
An easy chance was duly stroked home and alarm bells were ringing again for the home side! Eagle were soon to have another stroke of fortune. Newton’s playmaker suddenly lost direction and his wayward pass also went straight to a well positioned Eagle striker. It floored Newton’s central defence as well and yet again after only 10mins. the shot was well struck for an easy looking 2-0 lead to the visitors.
However, enough was enough and Newton started to roll their sleeves up to make sure no more gifts were going to go Eagle’s way!
It began to look an impressive response as Newton’s strength began to come from a now very assured looking back four.The home side began to enjoy more of the territory as well. It was noticeable that Eagle’s normally well oiled attack were actually struggling against this reply and as the half wore on it also became apparent that there was a real game on here.
Both sides were finding the going tough in the unusually high temperatures for February! Plenty of water bottles being thrown on the pitch whenever a stoppage occurred.A couple of stoppages occurring when players were on the wrong end of some thunderous challenges on show! Half-time and still 2-0.
Much of the same in the second period as well, but once more Newton had no real end product for their decent approach play. Eagle were in a real fight though and they were struggling in attack as well. They did manage to find the net 15mins from the end, but it was rightfully cancelled out when the last player was well offside.
Newton were again struggling all round at this point, but aided by another string of superb saves by their keeper(including a fantastic full length tip round the post), they re-gathered themselves and came back strong again.Eagle were struggling to mount any meaningful attacks down their right thanks to a near faultless full-back display and they were frustrated. Especially so when Newton broke and really should have scored.Their own right winger outpaced the Eagle defence,but instead of burying the ball in the net he elected to pass! The Newton striker then fluffed his shot and the great chance went begging. So too did the game, as Eagle had to settle for the 2-0 scoreline.
Newton can take heart from this whole hearted display and surely the time will come when they actually win a game ?

Team: Tom, Steven, Daniel R, Dec, Joss, Daniel G, David,Richard,Tristan, Liam,Wilko.
Subs: Toby (used), Jamie(used).
Ref: 6/10. Team ; 7/10. Global warming again!