League (away) v Saints Sports Club
W – 3 v 0
Goalscorers – Vicary 2, McArdle (pen)
Another 3 points for PBU at the weekend went down very well with the large following support!
After picking up 3 points against Panathanikoslast Saturday, PBU traipsed over to sunny Loughton to play Saints Sports Club, who had won their first 2 games of the season.
With Olly Cooper away on a school trip and Ben Mann and Harry Maddocks unavailable for selection, some tough decisions had to be made by the boss.
Ross was now signed on and came in as goalkeeper to make his full PBU debut. Callum O’Vell remained at right back following 2 fantastic performances in our first 2 league games. Christopher Pantelli again kept his place at left back and the versatile Aaron McArdle partnered Michael Turner at Centre Half.
George Bates continued in the centre of midfield with skipper Barry-Lee and the goal scoring machine Finbar remained at right midfield and Joe Herring lined up on the left.
Kyle Hellina and Reecey Vicary started up front leaving Ryan White and James Lambie as PBU’s substitutes.
After hiking 2 miles from the car park to the pitch, we realised that we were actually playing on a full-size adults football pitch for the first time to the dismay of Geoff O’Vell (probably still going on about it now!). It was also apparent that they had some large kids, even taller than me…. Altogether now…. “Well that isn’t hard”” I hear you all say!
The game started off a little scrappy with Aaron taking his time to find his feet at an unfamiliar centre back position for him, but it wasn’t long until we made the first chance of the game.
Some good work form Reecey and Finbar eventually saw the ball roll across the goal line to Kyle Hellina who impressively some how managed to get no contact on the ball with the goal mouth wide open!
A quite even match was turned on its head when Reecey was brought down in the box for a penalty. Simon Vicary laughed that Reecey should take the pen but after his miss from the spot last week the boss Jerome turned to Aaron McCardle, who coolly drilled the ball home to give us a one nil lead at half-time.
The second half was all PBU and it wasn’t long until the ball started to move around the park with some good work from Herring and Hastings.
Reece Vicary eventually got his name on the sheet with 2 well taken goals and it could have been even more with Kyle Hellina unlucky not to score when the keeper saved a one on one chance and Vicary could have pinched a hat-trick when he hit the bar from 10 yards.
Ryan White and James Lambie both came on as subs and did very well.
All in all a great team performance that moves us up the league and means it is getting harder and harder for Jerome to select who starts the next game following so many good performances.
Foran – 7.5
O’Vell – 7.5
McArdle – 8
Turner - 8
Pantelli – 7
Coll – 7.5
Bates – 7
Hastings (c) – 7.5
Herring – 7.5
Hellina – 7.5
Vicary – 8
Subs
White – 7.5
Lambie – 7.5
