Saturday 16^th August

Football League Youth Alliance

Hereford United 1

United 3

(Fower, Hodgkins 2)

United's under 18s got off to a winning start on Saturday as they beat Hereford 3-1 in their opening league match. Chris Fower and Niall Hodgkins scored the goals as the Oxes beat the Bulls,

Coach Les Taylor writes:

"It was a fair way to travel for the first game but we prepared well and had had a good pre-season so were ready for the game. It was the first time we'd really tested ourselves against a team of our own age as a lot of pre-season had been against men's teams, and that paid off because we dominated almost the whole ninety minutes.

Hereford were fairly direct but we didn't allow ourselves to get sucked into that and kept passing the ball and playing our own game. That paid off when we went 1-0 up through a good finish from Chris Fower, who lifted the ball over the keeper to make it 1-0.

Unfortunately we let Hereford back into the game before half time by conceding a penalty. James Foster did get a hand to it but couldn't keep it out, so we went in 1-1 at the break.

The second half was much better and we created chances, kept the ball better and put in a very encouraging performance. Niall Hodgkins is only a first year scholar but has settled in very quickly and scored two very good goals to make it 3-1, which was probably a fair scoreline over all. The two other first years, Adam Bowerman and James Dobson gave us balance and width, with James in particular putting in some very good crosses.

It was very pleasing to get that first win out of the way. That should give the lads a little bit of confidence  when we travel to Cheltenham for our next match.

United