Another packed fixture card confronted the magnificent men at the start of Week 17, with a second consecutive weekend of double headers for 3 of the club’s teams.
The 1s started their 3 fixtures of the week very positively by continuing their fine BUCS form and coming away with a 4-0 win at Fortress Westwood agains Coventry Polytechnic. In reality they should have scored more, but nevertheless the 3 points were convincingly won thanks to a Harry Wilson hat-trick and a single goal for Joe Davis. They could not, however, propel this momentum into the weekend’s big games against Barton and Stone, despite strong performances on both days. Dominating play, particularly against Stone, the 1s came away feeling hard done by with 2-0 and 2-1 losses respectively – Joe Davis again providing the goal for the students.
In stark contrast, the 2s, who had been dominating their BUCS league in a similar fashion to the 1st team, experienced an unexpected slip-up at the hands of Bedford (Uni?) and lost 3-2. Coming into the weekend’s fixtures, the Chirpsters looked to be under pressure again after going 3-0 down to Loughborough town on Saturday. Perhaps we can attribute this early sluggishness to the failure of any kind of transport to turn up for the boys that morning. Whatever the reason, it was short lived, and the students had reduced the gap to a single goal by half time through George Cloake and Andy King. The resurgence continued in the second half, and they took the lead after a short corner goal from Tom Trower followed by a penalty flick from Captain Tim Young. The 4-3 victory was secured with a heroic final whistle short corner save from the captain.
The 3s, meanwhile, also had a double header to contend with, but only after they had pulled off a victory against Aston University with another 4-3 scoreline on the Wednesday. Like the 1s, however, they could not carry this form into the weekend, and lost out 2-4 to Harborne at Westwood on the Saturday. And neither could they rebound from this defeat on the Sunday, though they came close. Again at home, the 3s put in a good performance, but failed to convert chances, eventually losing out 1-2 to Bournville.
With no game on the Wednesday, the 4s were afforded the luxury of a free Wednesday, and license to hit training hard on both Monday and Friday. This seemed to pay off, and understandably riled by the previous Sunday’s result, the team looked to bounce back. And that they did, bagging a 2-1 win against Sutton Coldfield 5s. Goals came from captain Alex Goddard and fresher Ali scoring his first goal for the club. A good performance that warranted more goals saw MoM votes shared between a number of players, but eventually fell to GK Harri Banerjee.