Bellmount Wood Avenue
Sun Sports F.C.
Bellmount Wood Ave,
Watford
WD17 3BN
(A) London Tigers
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.
(A) Sun Sports
Leverstock Green extended their unbeaten run to six games with a 2-2 draw at Sun Sports in Saturday’s SSML Premier Division game. With players and management on both sides having been involved with the other club, it was always going to be a hard-fought game, and so it proved with a draw being a fair result.
Leverstock took the lead in the 11th minute when Curtis Donaldson played in Brima Johnson, who drilled the ball across goal for Jonathan Lacey to come in at the far post and sidefoot home his 29th goal of the season.
Former Green player Tommy Walsh was just wide with a free kick for Sun in the 14th minute, but Leverstock were unlucky not to take a 2-0 lead in the 24th minute. Lacey ran in behind the Sun defence to get on the end of a through pass from Lewis Davis, and did everything right as he took the ball past keeper Matt Evans and directed it towards the empty net, but he was denied by a brilliant goalline clearance from former Green defender Damion Cruickshank, who had an outstanding game.
The scores were levelled in the 33rd minute as Andrew Brennan chipped a pass through to Karl Penny, who took it down and hit an unstoppable shot past Liam Jahn. Having been second best up to this point, Sun then had a good spell with Kyle Johnson having a shot palmed away by Jahn a minute later, and Jack Johnson hitting a shot over the bar after intercepting a stray pass in the 37th minute.
With the scores level at half time, Sun forced a save out of Jahn in the opening minute of the second half, but again it was Leverstock who had more of the play in the early part of the half. On 51 minutes Brima Johnson made a solo run into the box and laid off to Davis, who shot over the bar. Ross Adams came off the subs bench in the 54th minute and within two minutes was clean through on goal from Lacey’s pass but was denied by keeper Evans saving with his boot. In the 59th minute Casey Linsell made a great cross to the far post but David Lawrence’s shot was saved.
Having looked on top, Leverstock found themselves behind in the 65th minute. Lawrence and Penny challenged for the ball in the Green box, with the end result being the referee awarding a penalty to Sun. Jack Johnson netted the spot kick against one of his former clubs to put Sun 2-1 in front.
However, their lead lasted less than three minutes as a well-worked move involving Donaldson and Lacey ended with Adams shooting home an equaliser to level things up at 2-2.
Both sides had chance to win the game over the closing minutes, but Leverstock had the best chance in the first minute of stoppage time. Lacey’s pass from his own half allowed Karl Davidson to burst between two defenders and go clean through, but he was denied by a save from Evans, and neither Davidson nor Lawrence, who was following up, could put the loose ball into the net.
The point moves Leverstock back up into 11th place, a position they will secure with either a win at Hadley on Wednesday night or a point from next Saturday’s league closer at home to Crawley Green.