Lincs FA 50+ MD5

The final day of the Lincolnshire 50+ walking football league consisted of three difficult fixtures. Having performed well in the previous month the possibility of a decent finishing position was still on the cards.

Team:

• D Moore GK

• D Forth

• T Marsden

• M Edwards

• J Edey

• I Ross

The first fixture was against the table topping Sleaford Academicals, unbeaten in this league and already crowned champions. We battled throughout this fixture and but for some excellent saves from the Sleaford goalkeeper, may have been on level terms at half time. Losing 2- 0 at half time the team upped their performance still further in the second half with James Edey scoring for Strollers on his league debut. Despite our best efforts the game ended 3 - 1 to Sleaford. This though a loss was an improvement on our previous result against this opposition.

The second fixture vs Grimsby was a tighter affair with our recent county cup victory over Grimsby likely to have been on their minds! Some excellent football was going to be required to win this game and our goal was exactly that. Dave Forth carried the ball out from the back down the right side, an accurate pass to Iain Ross in front of the D who deftly flicked the ball to Mike Edwards for him to hammer the ball into the top of the net. Good defending and sound goalkeeping from Dave Moore ensured the result ended Strollers 1 Grimsby 0.

Our last fixture was against Lincoln Invictus, against all our other games had resulted in tight scorelines. Strollers played with confidence operating a ball denial game which appeared to infuriate the opposition. The fact that Strollers would score seemed inevitable and Iain Ross stepped up to score his seventh goal in this league this season. However Lincoln were not done and some uncharacteristic defending and tracking of players let them in for an equaliser. This upset us somewhat and focused our attention on scoring rather than simply keeping the ball. Iain Ross broke down the right side, almost running! attempted to put the ball to the feet of Mike Edwards but the pass was intercepted by the goalkeeper who could only play the ball away from the goal towards James Edey who hit the back of the net with a really well controlled shot to make the score Strollers 2 - Lincoln 1. From this point onwards we kept the ball and played out the game. Indeed it was not ' the world cup' as mentioned by some frustrated Lincoln players, but the unhappiness they felt was balanced by the happiness that the Strollers felt at such a good team effort.

In summary, we started the league poorly, being joint bottom at one stage, but ended the season in 3rd spot, an excellent effort.

Well done to all the players who took part and I hope that they enjoyed the season, varied as it was.