Match Report

Leverstock Green’s under-18s turned in a fantastic display in their first competitive game of the season, and the first under new manager Ross Bargent. They put seven goals without reply past London Tigers in their FA Youth Cup Preliminary Round tie, and will now progress to face Windsor FC away in the First Qualifying Round.

In truth, the score could have been doubled as the Leverstock side were in control throughout, and the game was largely one-way traffic. The Tigers side only arrived for the match 20 minutes before kick-off and had very little warm-up time, and soon had their backs to the wall against an exuberant Green side.

The scoring was opened in the 10th minute when a shot from Lewis Nicholls was saved by the keeper, but Ben Payne followed up to net the rebound. A nice build-up resulted in Nicholls shooting home from the edge of the box to make it 2-0 in the 17th minute.

The Tigers keeper produced two good saves in quick succession to keep out shots from David Emiloju in the 24th minute and Phoenix Chambers in the 26th minute, and Chambers was just over the bar with a shot on 29 minutes, but the inevitable third goal finally arrived in the 31st minute as Nicholls turned on the edge of the six-yard box to shoot home his second. Nicholls completed a first half hat-trick as he ran to a through ball to dink a shot over the keeper for a great finish in the 42nd minute.

The Leverstock side were no less dominant in the second half, but for a long while the ball would just not go in. The livewire 15 year old Chambers was replaced by an equally livewire 15 year old Nana Yeboah on the hour. The keeper produced three saves in a frantic three-minute period, and in the 70th minute Yeboah finally had the ball in the net, but it was ruled out for offside. On 75 minutes Nicholls was replaced by Jack Grieves, who almost scored immediately.

Finally the net began to bulge again as firstly Alfie Bigg in the 79th minute and Grieves a minute later both scored from close range to make it 6-0, and in stoppage time a foul on Yeboah brought a penalty, which Yeboah took himself to score a deserved goal and complete the scoring at 7-0.

A very impressive display by the Green side, even more so considering that four players in the side were from the Under-16 EJA squad.

Team: 20. Lawrence Knowles, 2. Jaylan Hector, 3. Ethan Bradbury, 4. Alfie Atkins, 5. Aidan O’Connor, 6. Frankie Bircham, 7. David Emiloju, 8. Lewis Nicholls (12. Jack Grieves 75 mins), 9. Ben Payne (14. Leo Broom 67 mins), 10. Alfie Bigg, 11. Phoenix Chambers (15. Nana Yeboah 60 mins).
Subs not used: 16. Wasi Naqvi, 17. Dylan Jones, 18. Keelan Ricketts.