Felixstowe 3’s Finish The Season On A High

Felixstowe Thirds  4 - North Walsham Thirds 0
Venue: Orwell High School - 2nd April 2011
 
Squad: Paul Ellis, Jes Rennie, John Tooley, Leighton Williams, Jonny Pearson, Matt Smith, Jay Steward, Charlie Burton, Luke Rudd, Neil Mac, Ryan Stockton, Jonathan Booth, John Bax, James Conway.
 
The third team arrived at their home astro in good spirits of finishing an incredible season with yet another win, on what was announced as their last game under the captaincy of Ryan Stockton after an excellent season’s captaincy. Charlie Burton was given the role of on pitch captain for the game as Stockton looked to sit back in his final game as official 3’s captain.
 
Felixstowe started the match in dominant style with sweeper come striker, Neil Mac, finding the backboard within the first 5 minutes after some creative pass and movement by the dominant Stowe midfield. Walsham’s heads seemed to have been left back on the team mini bus as Neil Mac found the backboard for the second time in 10 minutes with a delicately lobbed shot over the sprawling Walsham ‘keeper after his initial shot rebounded back off the ‘keeper’s kicker.
 
That goal, along with Matt Smith and Jonny Pearson being substituted off, proved to be a turning point as Walsham got their heads off the bus and into the game as they dramatically improved after conceding the second goal. Their defence began to push forward and their midfield’s dribbling had a real venom about it, with many pieces of individual brilliance proving hard work for Stowe to retain possession. Walsham took control of the game and enjoyed prolonged spells in the Felixstowe half, but no to avail as they failed to find the backboard. Deep into the first half, on pitch captain, Charlie Burton, was struck on the elbow and had to be substituted so he could take a trip down to A&E to get it checked over. Thankfully it was nothing serious, just some heavy bruising. John “The bloke with the gay headband” Tooley made it two yellow cards in two games after he was very harshly carded for a tackle that many would have judged as only a minor foul. The half time whistle could not have come any sooner for Felixstowe as they looked for time to reshuffle and regroup things without their sweeper.
 
Neil Mac rallied up the troops and Stowe reshuffled their formation to account for John Tooley’s yellow card. With Neil Mac dropping back into his usual position of sweeper and Ryan Stockton being left as a lone striker upfront.  Felixstowe played the passing game and comfortably passed their way through the opening  10 minutes, by which point John Tooley was allowed back on the pitch. Tooley was allowed to roam free in the midfield. Matt Smith and Luke Rudd drew the central midfielders away, leaving Tooley a straight path to collect a Neil Mac through ball before ‘pinging the ball first time into the back of the net, leaving the goalkeeper with absolutely no chance’ as he proudly told everyone at the clubhouse on numerous occasions after the match. His first goal in over 15 years of hockey, hopefully the first of many more to come in the new season!
 
With the ever vocal Matt Smith barking out the orders from the middle of the park, Stowe’s shape was held firmly in a dramatic contrast to the first half and this showed in both offense and defence as they controlled the game throughout the majority of the second half. Neil Mac finished another well worked Felixstowe move after a short corner eventually led to him finding himself with enough time to strike the ball into the bottom corner to complete his hat trick. Jonathan Booth shot agonisingly wide after some great penetrative movement in the Walsham ‘D’ with Jay Steward causing the Walsham defence all kinds of problems with some excellent dribbling and link up play with Luke Rudd, who put in another top class performance with both lads a good bet for the player of the season title.  Felixstowe’s pressure and excellent defending was enough to ensure a clean sheet, to the delight of ‘keeper Paul Ellis and they even managed to win a short corner right on the final whistle. Was this going to be a fifth goal for Felixstowe?  The ball was injected and then played to Jay Steward who played in square to Jonny Pearson, before finding Matt Smith on the byline who smashed the ball towards the ‘P’ spot off his reverse stick, falling tantalisingly close to an outstretched Leighton Williams, but just evading him and flying off the pitch but for the best efforts of Luke Rudd. The final whistle blew and Felixstowe celebrated finishing their season in style with an emphatic 4-0 win. A chilled beer at the clubhouse was well deserved by all the lads after a long, hard fought season, resulting in Stowe just narrowly missing out on promotion to Bury 4’s.
 
This season has been a remarkable season for the 3’s, after finishing down at the bottom of the table the previous season, they finished 3rd this season, showing a huge improvement in the squad.
Stowe will be hoping for an even better year next season, and are surely up there as one of the favourites to win the league next time around.
 
Match report - Matt Smith