Sunday 18^th October 2009

Toddington Rovers at home to Sandy Colts.

Team players; Eddie Fender, Andy Smith, Max Hellyer, Cameron Dalgarno,

Charlie Lang, Holden Nicholson, Jamie Richards, Tyler Bunyan,

Sam Hicks, Kaine Pollard, Lewis Sweeney, David Leversidge.

After last week’s loss which didn’t really reflect the flow of the match the team were ready to battle harder and faster for every ball.

Six minutes into the match and Toddington hadn’t conceded! WOW! Then on the 7^th minute a goal... but it was to Toddington Rovers!

Sam played a lovely little defence splitting ball to Scott who buried it confidently in the back of the net.

Toddington were MUCH quicker this week and challenged well with David a towering influence in the middle of the pitch and Tom buzzing around everywhere like a demented bee! Sandy just couldn’t contain him.

Toddington looked in control until their old habit of ball watching kicked again in defence and Sandy rifled in an equaliser.

The Sandy team soon picked out Lewis as a real danger up front and put two and sometimes three people on him which was great because it made much more space for the rest of Toddington’s team to surge forward. One such player was Tom who put Toddington back in front almost immediately.

Holden made a couple of really critical tackles to thwart the Sandy forwards but took a nasty knock and had to come off just before half time.

The second half started with Toddington in control and Kaine made one of his belligerent runs forward where we knew NOTHING would stop him until the ball was in or even through the back of the net!, and he didn’t disappoint, 3-1 to Toddington.

The match was being run by David, Kaine and Sam in midfield with Scott pushing up front more with Lewis and this nearly bore fruit as Scott hit the woodwork after a fine run and shot.

A rare break by Sandy saw a corner and some horrendous defending by Toddington saw a simple goal to bring it back to 3-2.

Toddington took control again with Charlie, Jamie, Tyler and Cameron all putting in good defensive tackles and clearances on the odd occasion they were called to.

Two minutes to go and Sandy had a throw in near the Toddington corner flag. A blatant push in the box saw a Sandy player flattened. The ref missed it and no penalty was given as the ball was put out for another Sandy throw. An action replay push in the box occurred but this time the ref saw it and a penalty was given.

Sandy equalised and the last couple of minutes did not give Toddington their deserved winner so a draw was the final outcome.

A MUCH better performance from the boys but some work on set piece play, both attacking and defending is definitely needed.

Sunday 11^th October 2009

Toddington Rovers at away to Oakley Rangers.

Team players; Eddie Fender, Andy Smith, Max Hellyer, Cameron Dalgarno,

Charlie Lang, Holden Nicholson, Jamie Richards, Tyler Bunyan,

Sam Hicks, Kaine Pollard, Lewis Sweeney, David Leversidge, Scott Malcolm.

A tough game was expected against a team who had started their season by thrashing Luton Old Boys 12-1.

Toddington have always been slow starters and often give away sloppy goals early on and they didn’t disappoint here with Oakley scoring in the first minute!

Toddington then woke up and Scott, David, Holden & Sam seemed to be getting the better of the midfield battles but the Oakley central defenders were working well together cutting out balls to Lewis & Kaine.

These defenders then took to passing the balls over the Toddington midfield and their three forwards started to make our defence look very slow and they soon scored again.

Once again the Toddington midfield pushed forward, this time Lewis and Kaine caused problems and found Scott who neatly placed the ball past the keeper to make it 2-1, and from then on the match was very even, until another case of slow defending allowed an Oakley striker time and space to send a rocket shot past Eddie who had no chance.

Toddington were throwing themselves into the match in the middle of the field and up front but the Oakley defence held firm with Sam firstly receiving a kick where no man should be kicked and then a knee in the head which meant he had to come off. Kaine & Lewis ran their socks off up front but David’s powerful contributions were continually cut out.

Just before the break the Oakley keeper pulled off a wonderful save to deny Toddington a deserved goal.

The second half started off with Toddington definitely looking the better of the two teams and twice shots rattled the Oakley woodwork before Toddington’s lack of speed at the back was shown up yet again with two quick break goals giving a 5-1 score line which didn’t really mirror the actual play.

Fitness training and speed exercises are definitely needed along with a ban on late nights on Saturdays before a match!

Toddington Rovers at home to Maulden Magpies.

Team players; Eddie Fender, Andy Smith, Max Hellyer, Cameron Dalgarno,

Charlie Lang, Holden Nicholson, Jamie Richards, Tyler Bunyan,

Sam Hicks, Kaine Pollard, Lewis Sweeney, David Leversidge.

The eagerly awaited first game of the season was upon us against a team we had just played the week before in a tournament at Flitwick.

The outcome of that match had been a hard fought very even 0-0 so another tight, low scoring game was expected here. (How wrong we were proved to be)

This season we had a new keen goalkeeper ready to start who was warming up enthusiastically with his father before kick-off.

The ref was a young girl from Toddington who was working her way through the referee’s course. She was accompanied by another young girl on the same course who would run the line and they were joined by a senior referee to mentor them and in this game run the other line for us. Three for the price of one and they didn’t even charge for travelling expenses, a great result before we even started!

Five minutes to kick off and a major problem arose for us. Our goal keeper has managed to break a finger during his warm up and have to rush off to hospital!!!

After a quick chat with the boys two volunteered to play in goal for one half each.

We were already one player light before the goalkeeper got injured so some major team juggling obviously put the players off as they conceded a goal within the first minute. 0-1

This woke Toddington up a bit and a good header forward by David put Lewis through to equalise. 1-1

An even match continued until Maulden got a lucky second but this was soon cancelled out as Sam fed Lewis again and he made no mistake. 1-2, 2-2.

Just before half time Maulden scored a rocket goal to make it 2-3 to Mauldem.

Toddington’s secret weapon was employed at half time (Jelly Babies!) which obviously had a real effect on Tom who was simply brilliant in the second half, battling for everything and getting an equaliser. 3-3

As seemed to be the pattern Maulden battled back and took the lead again 3-4, but a deadly corner by Sam saw Tom in the thick of it again to score his second and bring the score back to 4-4.

Toddington were getting on top now and Lewis soon found himself in space to score his hat-trick. 5-4

Maulden threw everything at Toddington but stout defending by all the boys held them at bay until one minute before the end when a Maulden player broke free and unleashed an unstoppable shot. 5-5

A really entertaining game played in the spirit of the game by both teams.

Lewis Sweeney scored a great hat-trick but the clear man of the match was Tom Osborne who not only scored twice, he defended really well.

Sunday 20^th September 2009

Toddington Rovers at home to Langford Youth.

Team players; Scott Malcolm, Andy Smith, Max Hellyer, Cameron Dalgarno,

Charlie Lang, Holden Nicholson, Jamie Richards, Tyler Bunyan,

Sam Hicks, Kaine Pollard, Lewis Sweeney, David Leversidge.

What was expected to be one of the hardest games of the season greeted Toddington.

Langford Youth were a team who had beaten Toddington 5-0 in the cup the previous season and had played the division above Toddington where they had won that league unbeaten with ridiculous ease, winning 19 games and drawing one. Scoring 130 goals and conceding just 10!!!!

This team was in this league just to win it. Their record should have put them in division two or even one.

Again we had the problem of no goalkeeper and although we had Scott back with us this week, Kaine had not been well all week so he volunteered to go in goal for us.

Unlike the first game we didn’t concede straight away, but when Langford did score, the boys’ concentration disappeared allowing Langford to get a second almost straight away.

Three of the Toddington team had been on a paintballing day on Saturday which obviously had taken its toll as they were nowhere near as lively as normal which gave the Langford players little or no defensive problems and our players all the defensive problems to contend with and four more goals before half time.

A re-shuffle of the team to bring two of our midfielders back into defensive rolls made a big difference in the second half and Langford had to battle really hard to get two more goals but our three chances at the other end were not taken as tired legs and heads showed.

Despite a thrashing by Langford, the boys didn’t get too despondent and were magnanimous in defeat at the final whistle which shows great character and good sportsmanship. We don’t expect them to like losing but when they do lose they should be gracious which they were.