Velocity Cup second round: Tuesday 24 September 2024
Match report
Westfield 2
- Richard Afrane-Kesey (17′)
- Richard Afrane-Kesey (47′)
Hanworth Villa 0
With several senior players on the injury table the club had little option but to give some of the younger members of the squad a run out for our Velocity cup game at Westfield. We had a few first team picks on the pitch in the guise of Rayan Djouadj, Louis Collins, Quincey Patterson and Joshua Millo.
The young guns alongside them performed extremely well against a decent Westfield side.
Westfield showed a lot of guile but our young defence looked pretty solid up until the point that Afrane Kasey made a darting run and latched onto a perfectly paced through-ball to open the scoring on 17’.
Our opponents coil have been down to 10 men as Body received a tough mistimed tackle on the edge of the box (suffering a nasty gash along his thigh), the ref however saw nothing wrong with the challenge and allowed play to continue.
Despite a lot of effort from both sides, including a shot from Body that clipped the post from short range (given as offside – but we’ve seen the video and he looks well on), neither side could make the breakthrough. For the opponents Beadle and Adebeyi always looked dangerous but Conrad Knight – between the sticks – showed great form and managed his area well.
For us Rayan Djouadj excelled in the centre of defense and as the game went on his confidence grew and his passing and runs into the opponent’s half was impressive.
In the second half we started brightly but just two minutes in there was a defensive mix up which led to Afrane-Kesey (and Westfield) getting their second. We spent the second half taking the game to them. Star of the show for us was Quincey Patterson, who made several runs and key passes and was called out for special praise by Simon Haughney in the post match interview.
We never got the clear cut chance to get a goal back in the second half but we saw plenty on the pitch to be hopeful for the future of the club. And although the result wasn’t what we wanted this was a good run out for the newer members of the squad.
