BU14 Stoats Battle Well Against EG

BU14 Stoats 0 - 1 East Grinstead BU14

Sunday morning saw many parents checking weather reports, Twitter feeds and emails to see whether Storm Dennis would scupper a 3.30 push back. After the previous weekend's Storm Ciara, whilst many parents were concerned about playing conditions, quite frankly they wanted to get their children out of the house and away from gawping at a screen.

A 0-1 defeat against a side who had beaten the Stoats 11-0 earlier in the season was no mean feat, not least as the Stoats were down to a bare 11.

Toby Thompson picked up a consecutive Player of the Match award as he displayed amazing strength, balance and control in the centre midfield role brushing many an EG player aside. His dad not only had a bird’s eye view of the action, but had actually donned Sou-Wester style waterproofs that Captain Birdseye himself would have been proud of. Both the Cox and Thompson families had offspring playing in the Tier 1 U18 cup match which provided parents the opportunity to see what their 12 year olds would evolve into; mini man mountains who will ace their A levels - but who struggle with the less cerebral task of putting on a pair of shin pads in less than 20 minutes.

The Stoats were quickly into their game with Toby making good runs to pick the ball up from the Surbiton defenders and linking well with his team mates. Dan Barnicoat, watched on by his middle sister (perhaps a consequence of not having tidied her room), displayed - at centre forward - clever link up that Nats would have been proud of.

But it was East Grinstead who took the lead with a counter attack which saw not many Surbiton players at home and the EG players making use of the overload to slot calmly past Nico. Fordy, struck in the face earlier in the game by a raised ball, rallied way and showed a very nice first touch as he calmly trapped powerfully hit passes from Toby.

But it was after some nice bit of skill from Toby that lead to a PC which he himself injected powerfully to Sammie whose slap rattled the upright and bounced clear. Surbiton defended strongly through Rudi and Tom and managed to force some circle entries but didn't quite show the composure required in the D to beat the EG keeper. And so, with the game finishing 0-1, parents were pleased to have had their kids run off some steam before they consider how they are going to keep them occupied for a wet half term week.