League: Comets Lions 8-5 Herons

A very windy morning perched up on Comets' home ground, Gadebridge Park in Hemel. Looking back through my records, it would appear to be a pitch that Archie has had mixed results on in the past. The most recent match he played here was for Evergreen Juniors in the semi-final of the league cup which ended in defeat (albeit due to a couple of extenuating circumstances already discussed on this blog). Archie started todays game upfront alongside Kian, but spent most of the game in midfield.

I'm not really going to write much about the first half of this game as none of the lads (Archie included) really turned up until the second half. We went in at half time 6-1 down! Our only goal of the first half was scored by central defender and captain Liam, from a free-kick. Good goal, but the Comets keeper was at fault really as fumbled the catch.

Herons' manager Paul gave the boys what for during the half time team talk, I chipped in too with some advice. The second began and we got straight back into the game. Archie had a couple of half chances against the Comets keeper but nothing came of them. Nothing really seemed to be going his way. Archie's confidence picked up a little and manage to set up two of our second half goals. The first was for James S's goal. The ball came to Archie with his back to goal, he turned the defender brilliantly, took a touch and James (who was running at speed) kind of took the ball from Archie in his stride and took it around the keeper and planted it in. He then set up Kian's goal. He ran with the ball down the left wing, muscling his way past a couple of defenders, looked up and absolutely spanked the ball. The keeper got over it, took some of the speed off and deflected it a little but Kian was there to mop up.

The highlight of the game for me, apart from Archie showing one or two glimpses of his previous outstanding season with Herons, was Riccardo's performance in midfield and Connor P's second goal. Ric put the mileage in, took some lovely touches and made some wonderful passes. As for Connor P's second goal... Corner floated into the edge of the box + fantastic movement to lose his marker = powerfully place header right into the top right corner of the net. Early contender for the goal of the season award I think.