Woodbridge Town Under 11s (Sunday) v Walsham (Away)

Sunday 9th March 2008

Half-time: 6-0 Full-Time: 6-1 Scorers: Taylor (3); Portaluri (2); Tripp Team: Burgoyne (Elsom); Archer; Abdel-Aziz; Hopkins; Wickson; Stephenson; Thurlow; Tripp; Church; Taylor; Portaluri. Subs: Read; Marshall; Hayward. Woodbridge Under 11s (Sunday) secured promotion to the first division of the Ipswich and Suffolk League with a comfortable, if unspectacular victory over mid-table Walsham side, who came into this game with confidence high on the back of three straight wins. On a very narrow pitch that was only just wider than the width of the penalty area, Woodbridge started well and the boys responded well to advice before the game about moving the ball quickly to stretch the opposition and open up space for the forwards to work in. It was, therefore, no surprise when Laurence Portaluri gave the team the lead after Marcus Taylor reacted well to a high ball into the Walsham box from right-back Ashley Archer and Marcus played the ball with one touch across goal for Laurence to place it by the stranded keeper. The boys reacted well to the physical game Walsham were playing and a number of boys were caught by late challenges early on. Marcus suffered a kick to the face at this stage, but his response was to shake it off and then score a hat-trick. The first came from a free header at a well-delivered corner by Laurence, the second was the end to a flowing counter-attack that began in our own area and the third came from Aaron Thurlow’s clever free-kick that caught the Walsham defence sleeping. These three goals took Marcus’ tally for the season to 34. The only down side to this passage of play was that captain Ben Hopkins aggravated a back strain and had to be replaced with Matthew Read going into the centre of midfield and Aaron again having to deputise at centre-half. Woodbridge continued to dominate the first half and when Marcus was cynically felled in the box, after a pinpoint pass from Ewan Wickson had put him through, it was left to Laurence to calmly stroke home the team’s fifth and his 35th goal of the season. Sam Tripp then scored the sixth goal after Caspar Church had taken a quick throw to give him space in the area. Caspar was linking well with Ewan and as the game approached half-time, he was unlucky to see his curled shot come back off the inside of the post straight into the goalkeeper’s arms. Harry Hayward, who had just come on for Marcus, drew a defender and then played in Caspar with a well weighted pass. The boys certainly deserved to be ahead at this stage. The defence was playing very well with Khaled Abdel-Aziz marshalling the line well and Aaron Thurlow sweeping up whenever required. Goalkeeper Emile Burgoyne was again largely redundant, but he came off his line well on three or four occasions to gather the ball at the top of his area. The second-half was a less enthralling affair and Woodbridge seemed to lose the ability to string together a series of passes and forwards often found themselves being given offside! Laurence was withdrawn at half-time following a knock and although there were some moments when individuals showed some nice touches, the team lost its fluency and rarely troubled the Walsham keeper, but that said Joe Elsom, who took over from Emile was rarely called into action as the game degenerated into a very scrappy affair. Joe did make one very important kick to ensure that an on-rushing forward did not get the first touch to a ball, but he could do nothing when Walsham were awarded a generous free-kick just outside the area and the ball looped into the top of the goal. Marcus went close with one effort, but apart from that neither team looked like adding any further goals with defences well on top. Kieron Marshall showed some good control on the right of midfield and he linked well with Ashley Archer at times. The important thing today was securing the three points needed to ensure that Bury Town could not overtake the team in the drive for promotion. Four more points will seal the title and this is with Thurston needing to win all their games left. It is a shame that the performance had not been more impressive, but the narrow pitch and heavy surface were always going to make this difficult and in fairness to the boys they never ever looked under real threat and did what was required particularly first half. Next week the team travel to Needham Market, a team that have improved dramatically since our 9-2 victory in a pre-season friendly. Needham are capable of scoring goals and have a very god home record, so the boys that play next week will need to be at their best.