The Big Kick Off

Here we go again and what a start, thrashing our local rivals (and our conquerors last week) Kingston. The heat was blistering and there were scorch marks all over the pitch as we played sublime, attacking football. We scored 5 goals, 5 wonderful goals, but we created at least 12 excellent scoring chances. What's changed? Well tinker men Tim and Dave forged a rock solid - and new - central defence pairing of Adam and Josh. We don't know how long we'll stick with it but it does allow two hugely important players to have a real influence on the game. This frees Rory to boss the midfield battleground and give our own Xavi and Iniesta pairing of Ben and Will, a platform to tiki-taka their way into the danger areas. Add impressive new boys Harry and Jack on the flanks, sharpshooter Fyn up front, ever diligent Joe and Toby in defence and Henry (who looked extremely solid on Sunday) and that's a heck of a team. But we're only as good as the squad and our bench v Kingston made us brilliant. If you've been chasing shadows for 30 minutes in the sweltering heat, the last thing you need is Matt harrying and hassling you. Lucas too, shows natural football intelligence in the wide areas and James (our Berbatov) produced the quality moment (and there were plenty of those) of the match with his supreme, instinctive control and pass into a galloping Jack. With Leo developing nicely under the watchful tuition of Chris, we've a talented squad full of options able to deal with a long and challenging season. Boys will play, boys will rest so it's imperative that we have competition for places. Anyway, let's get back to the goals the goals the glorious goals. True we went one down against the run of play but there was never a doubt we'd win this encounter and avenge the friendly defeat because of the chances we were creating. The boys were told to play a quick passing game and they stuck to the plan perfectly. Will hit the bar and then struck from a corner after the Cumnor wasp (specially trained by Bryan Goudman in the close season) made an appearance and launched an attack on the Kingston defence as the ball came in. It wasn't long before Will was at it again, caressing a lovely drive into the bottom corner. 2-1. The next goal came from a lovely intricate exchange between Fyn and Jack with Jack's inch perfect cross finding Harry who is making an art
form out of turning up at that far post to score. The boys were enjoying themselves and soon got another goal - our 4th - when Will played a divine pass into the tireless, livewire Fyn who opened his body and found the far corner. Our 5th goal - and Will's hat-trick - was a dream of long range knock
clip into the top corner. There could have been more goals, many more. Strangely, it didn't matter. Ben might have capped a dream display with a deserved goal but it didn't happen. More chances will come as he beds down in this new advanced position. Fyn - when fully back in the groove - will score as well. Jack was an immense threat out wide and he too, will get plenty of scoring chances. All the
boys played sweet, effervescent football. The back four were passing it around and Adam and Josh were relishing the chance to advance. The midfield worked their triangles and Fyn and James, Matt, Jack, Lucas, Toby and Joe never stopped grafting. And best of all, Henry was alert to any threat on a difficult hard pitch. Thank you boys, here's to a great season.  Player of the Week: How could we
choose one player from that performance? We couldn't.