24 hours until the big kick off….

Only 24 hours now until the start of another season…….

The 2nds start away against Village 4ths. The 1sts play at home against Resolution 2nds.

2nd match day squad as it stands….

Pav, Stephenson, McMullan, Walsh, Edmondson, Downing, Price, Humphries, Kelly, ‘Pistol’, ‘Moza’, ‘JP’, ‘Salmon’, Sawyer (A), ‘ShowNokes’, Ware

Managing the 1st team

I got a short term promotion on Saturday and took on the role of caretaker manager for the 1st team.

With permanent manager Heath at a wedding I got to make a return visit to Resolution but this time to play their first team.

The squad was a mixture of both 1st team and 2nd team players, although more so 1st teamers.

It took a little time for the players to gel, as once again, it was very much the case of the players not being used to playing with one another. From the kick off, Resolution played the ball around well and it looked like they may go 1-0 up without us even touching the ball. However we survived that attack but did go 1-0 down half way through the half. For the remainder of the half, Resolution had more of the ball, but did not create too many more clear cut chances and it was indeed Hayward who hit the post for Parkfield towards the end of the half.

Changes were made by both teams at half time to give the subsitutes a good run out. This changed the game and Parkfield took control of the match. Having the majority of the ball we created two clear cut chances for 2nd team strikers Moza and Sadler before Sadler hit the back of the net to score the equaliser. We also had a good claim for a penalty, but it was turned down by the referee so it ended as 1-1.

Definitely a much better performance from the 1st team which resulted in the players high in spirit. Hopefully it bodes well for when Heathy takes over again for the first match of the season this coming Saturday.  

PS – I decided against making an appearance off the bench for this game as I was nursing a slight calf strain otherwise I am sure I would have bagged the winner again going on my pre-season form.

I was wrong……

I was wrong about me scoring my only goal of the season when I helped the 1st team to their 4-3 win against Hayes Heath Harriers.

I did it again on Tuesday. This time for my 2nd team. Coming back from being behind 3 times I bagged the winner in the last 10 minutes with the looping header for another 4-3 victory.

Playing new boys to the league, Coldfield Rangers, I had more or less the 2nd team squad playing, with the exception of Banton in goal and 1st team manager Heathy in midfield.

We were a bit scratchy against a reasonable opposition, but we will be playing better when the season starts, so there are still some concerns. Mainly with centre midfield and centre back. But as people say, a win is a win.

So roll on the 5th Sept and the start of my 3rd season in charge of Parkfield 2nd team. It could be my last……

Pre-season friendlies update…

The last two friendlies to up date you with.

Firstly a visit to the best facilities in the AFA, Resolution.

Playing their 2nd team (like Sutton 3rds they play in Division 2 and funny enough they will be the first opponents of the 1st team come the start of the season) we got riped apart first half by their two rapid and skillful forwards. It was 5-0 at half time. The second half was much better with us actually winning the half 1-0.

So after that 5-1 defeat, to the final friendly of pre-seaason………

Best performance of the season?

I certainly hope not!

But our second half performance against Sutton United 3rd team on Tuesday night was one of the best I have seen from the 2nd team.

Fielding a strong side we were up against division 2 opposition (the same division that our 1st team will be playing this season) and went down 1-0 mid way through the 1st half courtesyof an own goal from Agar. A decent performance, but it really started to click in the second half. The game opened up and there was some great football from both sides. We hit the post and the bar before posting our equaliser through new player Quinney. It did end up 1-1, but thoroughly enjoyable. I just wish every game was like that, even though we did not win.

Back to the ground with a bump on Saturday. Fielding a much weaker side we got torn apart by the forwards of Resolution 2nds (another team from Div 2) conceeding five first half goals. We were better second half, actually coming out on top 1-0.

So a 3-1 defeat, a 1-1 draw and a 5-1 defeat with the final pre-season game on Tuesday night against league new boys Coldfield Rangers.

Well that’s likely to be my goal for the season!

Another outing with the first team today, saw me score the winning goal. What is likely to be my one goal of the season.

Again playing a team from a much lower division, the team, missing a fair number of players, struggled for the first 30 minutes and found themselves 2-0 after two goalkeeping blunders. But by the time I came on after 30 minutes, there had been a couple of other substitutes, we had started to get on top and had pulled a goal back. So to be honest I had very little to do at centre back.

Going into the second half we continued to dominate but without hitting the back of the net. After about 20 minutes I came off again. Then out of the blue, the opposition hit a third goal, probably only their third chance and things got a little ragged. With 15 minutes to go the score was still 3-1 and I came back on up front. The team seemed to pick up the pace again and we started to create some more chances. I had a couple of difficult ones shooting through a crowded box but then in the last minute, the score was back level at 3-3, a long throw came to me which I flicked into the far corner of the goal. It went over the line, but was cleared by a defender. However it can straight back to me so I made sure by volleying it into the back of the net.

So two wins out of two for the first team, but against much weaker opposition. A bigger test next week against Shelfield 1st team whilst my 2nd’s will be against Resolution 2nds.

So it has started…

…..with a defeat.

First friendly of the new season and we are 3-0 down after only 10 minutes. Definitely not a good start.

Playing Shelfield’s second team, who will be battling it out in the division below us this season, we made three heinous defensive errors, which were finished well, to provide the worst possible start to the new season.

To be honest though, we then picked ourselves up and matched them for the rest of the game, pulling one goal back through a penalty.

Although I had 18 players on the night, 6 of those will not be available to play during the season, so we are still looking a little weak, especially in the centre defence and centre midfield positions.

I get to play for the 1st team tomorrow in their friendly.

First game

Saturday saw me play in my first game of the season.

The first pre-season game for my team is not until next Tuesday (11 Aug) but the 1st team manager got one in early.

He was lacking in centre backs, so in the end I played about 75 minutes in what was a comfortable win but the wettest game I have ever played in. At half time if you put me through a mangle I am sure you would have extracted at least a gallon of water. One player went to the extreme of stripping off his shorts and wringing them out!

Anyway the game resulted in a 4-1 win. It should have been more against a team from the lower division. But put in retrospect that there was not a single player on the pitch that started with 1st team at the start of last season I guess it was not too bad.

Rapidly approaching…..

I thought, since that the new football season is rapidly approaching and pre-season has started again at Parkfield, I had better start up the blog postings again.

So far we have had 4 pre-season sessions. The first I missed (I had a prior commitment but I have to say that 2 July was a little too early for me). Since then we have had an average of 20 individuals at each session. Nothing like the same people each time, which is one way a positive, as it means significantly more are interested, but a number of them will not actually play next season. This includes Tom who is off to America on a scholarship to play “soccer” for a university over there and Rennie who is on trial with Luton Town (yes that Luton Town that got relegated from Div 2 last year).

The first pre-season game for the 2nds is planned for Tuesday 11 August 2009.

More updates as approach that date.

Its all over for another season…

And thank goodness for that after last night’s awful performance.

Sporting a number of first team players due to the lack of availability of second team players, it must have been one of our worse performances all season. In the end it finished 8-2 to Meridan.

So a complete contrast to the end of last season when we went five games undefeated, this year saw us slump to five heavy defeats.

Well here is to next season……..