Sandiacre Town vs Gresley Rovers
The reserves started their pre-season friendlies off at the week-end with an away trip to Sandiacre Town of the Central Midlands Premier League.
This was always going to be a tough test for a my new young reserve side, in some cases players were meeting for the first time never mind playing together for the first time.
Sandiacre ended up winning 2 - 0, but the result is of little consequence a this stage to me as I am more interested in the quality of the things we did and how we reacted to playing against good strong opposition and on how well the new and old lads did.
I left the match pleased on Saturday, the lads performed to the highest standard against a team of nearer in foot-balling status to our first team than the reserves, infact if we showed a little bit more composure in front of goal in the first half we may have had two or three ourselves, this we will endeavour to put right for future games.
I'd like to make special mentions to Brad Clarke for his magnificent penalty save and to Matt Brown on his return to the club, who put in a good performance down the right.
We also looked solid in the middle of the park were Zak Jackson and new lad Jamie Brown dominated, Adrian Brevitt played outstandingly well in an unaccustomed role in the centre at the back too.
All to often with pre-season friendlies I take a large number of new players and end up disappointed with some or all, but I'm glad to say this season, that is not the case and all the squad performed well, so thank-you and well done and above all keep it up!
The last word to Nath, welcome back mate and its good to see that you've lost none of your ability or enthusiasm after your long lay off.
1. Brad Clarke
2. Micky Sandar (capt)
3. Adrian Brevitt
4. Andy Mortishead
5. Nath Tate
6. Zak Jackson
7. Jamie Brown
8. Jeremy Millensted
9. Bryan Barker
10. Kamar Smithen
11. Ritchie Harris
12. Matt Brown
13. Tom Bartram
14. Jak Ward
15. Steve Hart
Simon Van-de-Broucke
Reserve Team Manager
