A trip down memory lane for a few of us today..
I parked in the road I grew up on, to play Bedfont Eagles, who I played for when I was a kid...
Then, we meet the Eagles Coach, who used to coach James in Egham, when is was in his teens...(not long ago)

Fair to say, we were very much up for this one...and so were they...
Eagles out of the blocks holding a fair amount of possession in the early exchanges, and setting the tone for how hard we needed to work as a unit today. Oppo 12 playing with great confidence down the right wing, and offering options for their forwards who were snubbed out by Archie, who knew where to be every time. Our defensive line from Louie and Clark forcing the Oppo into Off side an awful lot. In some ways, it felt like we were not going to be in possession much, but after a superb chase from Oliver, he managed to reach the ball and cross a lovely sitter for Teddy to slot in. 0 - 1.
This somewhat rattled the Oppo, who kept pushing at pace. But, now Louie had a greater measure of their wingers, and played a great physical (but fair) battle to keep them in check along with his excellent pace. Some Fresh legs from Dan also presenting some good pace and physicality to dampen down those opportunities to keep our lead at HT.

The Ravens started to play with more confidence in 2nd half with some amazing kicks from hand by Daniel finding Oliver on the wing, who was causing merry hell for the Oppo and really opening the game up for us with several near misses across the face of goal. In the middle, we saw some lovely dribbling from Albert, and Coben, who were getting balls into Teddy, but just didn't quite get a clean shot away. Toby playing his part by fighting hard to get a foot on the keepers clear-outs..
Kayden back on the pitch with some great link up play with Oliver, who was now in his zone..
With a narrow lead, and the need to keep the physicality going, Stanley taking up the roll in defense and giving us "heading" options off the corners, which were coming thick and fast from Olivers threat.
Oppo getting a bit of space behind our defenders, but just finding themselves sitting in offside positions too often to pose a real threat.
Then a great kick from Daniels hands into Olivers space, and a sweet cross which Teddy collected to square it for Coben to double our lead, which was a great relief as the minutes ran out...0 - 2

I think that is the hardest fought win we've had all year. A tough game, but a real battle that the boys won by all of them fighting for every ball.
This was typified by todays MOTM Oliver, who's 2nd half performance was pulling oppo out of shape. But, to be fair we could have given it to a number of players that worked so hard. The fitness levels shown today were brilliant, and we look forward to our nemisis team next week "Halliford Colts". Play like we did today, and anything is possible.

Big thanks to Dave running the line under a bit of parental pressure at times.