WHERE'S WALLACE?

Following a great start the week prior, the mighty 3s march into their first league game of the season. There were a couple of familiar faces missing, notably last weeks Man of the Match, Harry Wallace. He for whatever reason decided it would be better to watch his beloved Middlesborough get shafted 4-1 by Sheffield Wednesday, karma.

To the game... the 3s were in good spirits and did well to put the opposition off of the scent by missing roughly 75% of the warm-up shots to one of the opposing fields, much to the displeasure of the goalkeeper mid-match on said field. This warm-up tactic seemed to have worked as the opposition decided to allow us to have the wind with us for the first half.

From the start the 3s found themselves comfortably in control, passing throughout the squad with patient build-up play and very little in terms of threat from the Tiffs' front line. The 3s found themselves with a throw-inn deep in the Tiffs' half, Joey Cozens-Smith takes the throw-in, deep into the box. Cozens-Smith gets a double assist here as we believe the sun shining from his head put off the Tiffs' defence who stood still as Bench (Ben Charles-Hill) controlled the ball with his chest, to then kick the ball back over his head, looping straight in to the back of the net. Elegant.. perhaps not, either way, 1-0 the Borough!

Again the Borough found themselves comfortably in control as the game continued. Playing across the back Andrews looked up, saw the diagonal run of Archie about to break through the attacking line and decided to send the ball forward. The ball flew forward, far past Archie as Andrews clearly booted the leather object too hard... but, wait, Jamie darting from the left wing like a spaniel chasing a thrown stick is going to get there... HE'S THERE, HE'S SCORED TO THE RIGHT OF THE KEEPER! Some might say Andrews was a visionary with the play, others might say he got a bit lucky.

The Borough entered half time at 2-0, in reality it should have been four, maybe five, but we were not clinical enough and that is something to work on in the coming games. Half time chat encouraged our first half performance, also noting that with Tiffs on eleven we had to take the game to them and tire them, the next ten minutes would be critical.

The second half starts, and of course we bring all of the pressure on to ourselves and Tiffs are edging closer and closer to scoring. Fair play to Tiffs as they picked up on the pressure and were encouraging each other as they felt the Borough were on the ropes. Some great blocks, an excellent diving save from Andy and we're still holding it at 2-0 with 15 to go.

Tiffs get themselves a corner and irrespective of the screams to pick up the spare Tiffs player off of the back post, he wasn't picked up, the ball bounced through to said player and he comfortably nets. Is the 3s' Desmond curse back with us again!?! (If you've read the score you know it isn't).

Borough are doing well to release some of the pressure and we come close to scoring, only Lee Grant smashing over the bar, again, for the second week in a row, and Archie deciding to smash the ball at the keeper rather than the massive gap on the right of the goal keeps us at 2-1.

There's one final attack from Tiffs and it somehow ends up in a contested drop ball from a Tiffs player obstructing play. Two problems there, the obstruction should be a free kick and contested drop balls aren't a thing any more. Irrespective the Tiffs forward is a little too eager and gets the contested drop ball wrong awarding an uncontested drop ball to the Borough... it's cleared, long up the field, there's a couple of minutes to go with some back and forward but the game is over, Borough take the three points and we have ourselves a great start to the season!

Notable mentions to Taf and Bench for two individually excellent performances as well as Tom Pytlos who, had he turned up for a beer might have taken the MoM award. Gutted.

Thanks to Tiffs who turned up and played a good-spirited game!