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Courtesy of:- Ray Lo, and the Spurs List
FA Premier Academy League
Spurs Lodge, Luxborough Lane,
Chigwell, Essex
Saturday 22nd. January 2005, ko 11am
SPURS v WATFORD
(White/Blue) (Yellow/Black)
4-4-2 4-4-2
(0) 0 (0) 1
SPURS - Forecast, Kyriacou, Wright(Smith 46 Mins.), Lewis, Riley, Lee,
Davis, Hamed, Thyer, O'Hara(C), Dawkins
WATFORD - Team unknown, Cader(14 35 Mins), 3(12 90 Mins), Diafutua(15 90
Mins.)
Scorer - Diafutua 57 Mins.
Booked Watford 11(50)
On a frosty morning Spurs' Academy returned to Spurs Lodge for their first
game after the Christmas holidays. Both teams had victories in the Youth
cup during the week, Watford 1-0 over Newcastle and our own boys penalty
shoot-out win at Anfield. Due to injuries Pat Holland only had one sub on
the bench in Alex Smith who stepped up from the U-16's. Spurs lined up with
Chris Riley partnering Charlie Lee at the back with John Kyriacou at right
back and Mark Wright at left. Captain Jamie O'Hara with Stuart Lewis were
in central midfield with Jamie Davis on the right wing and Simon Dawkins on
the left allowing Radwan Hamed to partner Scott Thyer up front.
Spurs defended the North End and were soon on the attack winning three
corners inside the opening ten minutes with Thyer just failing to reach a
Davis cross at the far post. Riley picked the ball up in the centre circle
and danced forward before hitting a rising drive which Kirk in the visitors
goal tipped over. The Hornets who have a big strong side and had inflicted the
last defeat on our U-18 side, 3-0 back in November, began to push forward
and Diafutua forced Forecast to make a great save to his left and the 14
hit the foot of a post following a corner in the last minute of the half.
The visitors started the second half on a high and kept the pressure on
despite the home side pushing forward themselves. Young Smith came on for
his first game in place of Wright going to right back with Kyriacou moving
to the left side. The game was quite physical with a number of stoppages
due to injuries but the only booking came when the Watford 11 threw the
ball away at a free kick. By this time Holland had switched Thyer and
Dawkins to give more pace up front.
Hamed who had shown some nice touches in the first half began to get away from his marker and looked more dangerous, but the Hornets defence held strong. Watford got the goal they
had threatened when French striker Diafutua turned in a free kick from the
left. They almost added to that five minutes later when a Grant cross shot
was cleared off the line when it looked suspiciously in. Hamed had the best
chance to equalise when he failed to get enough contact on a centre in
front of goal.
In a closely contested game we were just edged out by a team that made
more of their chances than we did. I don't know if the visitors played a
weakened side as we did as I do not know what the full line-up was, but
encouragingly this was the first defeat for Spurs in eight games although they only
won two of them in 90 minutes. The next game at The Lodge is on the 12th
February when the visitors will be Cardiff City. They will be away to
Leicester the week before that on the 5th. which co-incidentally is two
days before the Reserves play Leicester City at Stevenage.
© Ray Lo
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