Oadby Town vs Gresley FC
Oadby Town 2 - 3 Gresley
Scorers: Burnham (pen), Friel, Madeaya
This Saturday we visited Oadby in the Challenge Bowl Round One. Oadby started the game the stronger side and should have taken the lead with several decent chances but they failed to convert the chances into goals.
After about 15 - 20 minutes we regained our composure and started to impose ourselves on the game. Some good work down the right by Daryle Towle slipped the ball through Oadby's back four for Tom Read to gather and burst into the box. He was cynically brought down just as he was going to shoot with the referee pointing to the spot. Up stepped Chris Burnham to convert the spot kick to keep his goal scoring run going.
After the penalty and going 1-0 up we kept the pressure on and very soon we broke through again with a third man run from centre midfielder Paul Friel who looped the ball over the on rushing keeper and neatly finished with his head to make sure we were going in at half time 2-0 up.
Second half we started the stronger and managed to play some decent football at times but Oadby were always a threat at the other end playing three upfront and they managed to pull one back on the hour.
Scott Allsopp, who had a solid game at right back, started to look tired so we brought on young Richard Dawson to freshen things up, with Oadby starting to threaten down our right.
We then took Daryle Towle off for Winston Madeaya, Winston joined us today with the recommendation from youth team manager Rory Downes, and for the 20 odd minutes he had, he looked dangerous and capped his reserve team debut with a well taken goal from the edge of the box to give us a 3-1 lead with 10 minutes left.
Oadby pulled one back near the end to make it 3-2 and with only a couple of minutes left we put on Jermaine Cunningham for Tom Read who had worked hard upfront for most of the game and we managed to hold on, although we could have snuck one on the final whistle but Jermaine's shot was deflected on to the post.
Overall it wasn't our best performance by any stretch of the imagination but we worked hard and we took the majority of our chances when they came which in recent games we haven't done.
Squad: Paul Hollis, Scott Allsopp, Ashley Franklin, Lee Stretton (c), Joe Tomlin, Paul Friel, Daryle Towle, Joe Urhquart, Chris Burnham, Tom Read, Joe Swift.
Subs: Richard Dawson, Jermaine Cunningham, Winston Madeaya.
