City Emerge Winners In Leicester Derby
City Men's 1s welcomed local rivals Leicester to St Margaret's Pastures for the last game before Christmas, with a strong squad of 16, but got off to a rather ‘village’ start as more kit-based dramas resulted in Jacob B borrowing some shorts and Spencer getting creative with a pair of tracksuit bottoms and some scissors.
City were on top from the start but were frustrated for large parts of the first half by a well organised Leicester defence and the visitors ’keeper made several stops to deny Jacob B and Jamie.
Despite their low league position, Leicester posed a serious threat on the break and only some good positioning and reading of the game from Ross and Spencer kept the visitors out of the home D.
The first goal almost came from some good hold up play from David M but his ball to the far post was wasted as unfortunately he couldn’t be in two place. The breakthrough finally came from a penalty corner, Karl’s well hit shot was saved by the ‘keeper but the ball dropped to Boyce at the top of the D who slapped it in to the back of the net.
The end of the first half saw a green card for descent and a ticking off for both captains as a tetchy local derby saw some robust tackles from both sides.
The home side were given a shock early in the second half when a long ball forward found the visitors lone attacker who twisted and turned his way in to the D before firing a powerful shot in to the corner of the goal. The unfortunate home ‘keeper Harry got his only touch of the game as he picked the ball out of his net.
Straight from the restart, Nic set the tone for City, snapping in to tackles and fashioning chances for Mo S and Ryan who were both denied by some excellent goalkeeping. As a dominant City pushed forward Kaleb, who was finding acres of space on the flanks, was unlucky not to cap a good debut with a goal as he sent a strike just wide of the post.
City regained the lead when ‘clinical’ David Magill grabbed his eighth of the season by cleaning up a rebound off the ‘keepers pads after some frantic attacking play.
The home side lost some shape as they pushed on for more goals and coach Elsbeth was not impressed by the lack of discipline which gave Leicester the space to counter before being denied by some solid defending from Henry, Luke and Rahul.
City eventually made the points safe as Boyce picked out an unmarked Tim who finished the scoring with a powerful strike in to the net.
Team - Harry (GK), Boyce, Luke, Ross, Henry, Spencer, Rahul, Nic, Karl, Tim, Jacob B, Kaleb, Ryan, Jamie, David M, Mo S
MOTM - Nic White - driving the team on from the bottom of the diamond
DOTD - Jacob Burns - forgetting his shorts
Special thanks to our vocal supporters and to Declan and Sandy for umpiring.
