Today the U-17 side played a friendly with Fulham at Myddelton House, Enfield. The side was depleted by players joining the U-19 squad for their trip to Bristol City. As there was no team sheet for this game I am indebted to Andy Porter and David Kerslake for the names of the team.

              SPURS    v    FULHAM
          (White/Blue)   (Black/White)
          3-5-2/4-4-2       4-4-2
               1(1)          3(0)

Team - Forecast(Button 46), Kyriacou(Kerslake 46), Wright, Harvey(Cooper 46), Watson(C), Welch, Lee(Harvey 90), Stevens, Dawkins(Seanla 46), Hicks(Kyriacou 70), Jenkins. Unused sub - Barcham

Scorer - Dawkins 20 Mins. Fulham 73, 85,90+ Mins.

The morning was cool and overcast with a firm dry pitch. The team consisted of a number of U-16's with two U-15's and an U-13 who came on for the second half. The team lined up with Watson flanked by Harvey and Welsh at the back, Kyriacou and Wright played as the right and left wing-backs outside of Lee, Stevens and Hicks in midfield. Simon Dawkins and Gareth Jenkins played up front in a team that was obviously looking to next season.

Spurs dominated the first half with Hicks, Dawkins and Jenkins all going close before Dawkins picked up the ball on the edge of the box and made an angled run to the right before hitting the ball back across the keeper into the left side of the goal. We nearly had a second when Dawkins squared the ball from the right for Hicks arriving late at the far post.

Joe Watson was having a good game at the heart of the defence missing very little. John Kyriacou and Charlie Lee were linking well down the right as was Mark Wright and David Hicks on the left. Pocket sized Danny Stevens did a lot of good things in the middle including winning the ball in the air and showed some good skill on the ball.

It made a change to see us threaten at corners where we matched the Cottagers for height. Dawkins showed a fair amount of skill and Paul (Spurs Odyssey) Smith remarked that he looked better than Malcolm, which is some praise! The home side saw a lot of the ball with a number of corners and efforts on goal that it was a surprise that we failed to add to the score.

Spurs made four changes for the second half with Seanla replacing Dawkins up front with Cooper, central and Kerslake(David's nephew) to leftside of midfield for Kyriacou and Harvey, Lee went to right back in a back four and U-13 keeper Button, at over 6ft, took over between the sticks.

The game completely changed in the second half due to the substitutions and formation which allowed Fulham to dominate the half with Lee being exposed down the left after they made three substitutions just after the hour bringing back two players who had been replaced earlier. Spurs themselves brought back Kyriacou when Hicks suffered a head injury, going to right back allowing Lee to move to right midfield.

Fulham equalised in the 73rd. minute when a low shot from the corner of the area beat Button at the near post as the keeper was slow getting down. The Fulham midfielder number 7 grabbed two goals in the last five minutes as they also hit the bar and post. Just before their third Lee was taken off for Harvey after he had made a bad foul on one of the Fulham players.

This being a friendly it allowed Jimmy Neighbour to have a look at some young players ahead of next season without worrying about a result with the game being well contested without the bad temper that creeps into some matches nowadays. Two players that stood out were Danny Stevens, the pint-sized midfielder and Simon Dawkins up front.

Next week there are two reserve matches when we entertain Ipswich Town on Monday (at Broadhall Way, Stevenage) and go to Watford on Thursday for the re-arranged fixture.

Ray

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