Playing in division five of the Birmingham AFA one does not expect to come up against an ex premiership player, especially one that is still in his prime footballing years.
Before the match, as the manager, I get to see the opposition team sheet and there at number nine was one Steffan [sic] Moore. I was just expecting some one that just happened to share the same name as the former Villa player. Nope, it was actually, the Stefan Moore.
Having been released by Kidderminster (20 games -2 goals) a couple of days previous, he decided to enjoy a run out with Silhill 4th team, playing with one of his long time mates.
Due to a lack of the availability of my regular centre midfielders, for the first time in four years I had to play in the centre of the field, reducing my contact with Stefan. I only got to play directly against him for the last 20 minutes as I dropped back into defence after 70 minutes. We kept him quiet for most of the game including a clean but crunching tackle by myself, but towards the end of the game as the play opened up he took advantage of the space. His second goal was of premier league quality. Turning Walsh on the corner of the box with one movement he chipped the ball straight into the far corner of the net.
I have to say that he was a pleasure to play against, open to a bit of banter and definitely not pretentious. To be honest I would much rather to play against him week in, week out compared to some of the big headed, idiots I come up against.
In the end we lost the match 4-2 after being ahead for a good part of the second half. The positive? We scored for the first time in over 300 minutes of play.
In mid week we drew another blank, losing 1-0 to Meridan after being the better team for the majority of the match.
Just one match to go!
Filed under: 2 XI, Match report, Results | Tagged: Meridan Athletic, Silhill, stefan moore
