The firsts beat the reigning league champions, the Greek Americans, for the first time in the club's history. The achievement was all the greater as we entered the match with five first team players out injured and will only 11 fresh players.
The player crisis forced us to play a more defensive 4-5-1 formation, and in the end this went some way in helping us achieve victory, as the Greeks found it very hard to break down our stubborn resistance. The first 20 minutes did not foreshadow the result as we were constantly under pressure and could not gain any meaningful possession. Ben made a couple of fine saves and as the half progressed we started to figure out the Greek mode of attack and get a hold of the ball. After about 30 minutes our corner kick was cleared to the edge of the area and man of the match Conor expertly placed the ball into the bottom corner to give us the lead.
The second period saw the Greeks make a tactical change as they brought on a big target man up front. They started resorting to a long ball game, but our resolute defense hardly gave them a sniff at goal. In fact, we had some decent goal scoring chances ourselves as we got the ball wide and played crosses in that only needed a finishing touch. As the game neared its end we had to play with 10 men for a few minutes as the brave Eli Vovsha needed treatment for an injury he was playing on. Special mention also goes to Kwesi who played most of the game with a tight hamstring. He finally came off with 20 minutes to go and Amos came on for his second game of the day. And having scored earlier for the reserves he soon scored his second goal of the day, catching the Greeks on the break and toe-poking the ball past the onrushing keeper when through on a break away. The 2-0 win was richly deserved as everyone had excellent games, including CPR debutants Chris Brunet and Ethan Mulligan.

Team: Ben L, Ethan, Elie, Pat, Josh, Conor, Mark, Eli, Chris, Danny, Kwesi. Sub: Amos