Yateley United 1-3 Sholing Reserves

Scorers : Prentice 1, Jellis 2

Date : 2 August 2014 - Pre-season Friendly

Team : Norris, Alex, Stubbs, Roundell, Ferguson, Mwenze, Dove, Parker, New, Prentice, Bernard.  Subs all used : Tollervey, Davis, Jellis, Harvie

A very young reserve side including seven 17 or 18 year olds travelled to Yateley United on Saturday who in their last 2 friendlies enjoyed victories over combined counties league teams. 

The first half was frantic with our 18 year old Canadian keeper, Brendan Norris, being called on to make some good saves.  However as the boys started to get a more controlled passing game together the midfield of Dove, Mwenze and Parker started to assert authority and it was a great pass from Callum Parker who set up Cain Prentice to use his strength and agility to open the scoring. 
 
Unfortunately Cain Prentice had to come off injured which was a big loss however his replacement, 17 year old Josh Jellis, proved to be an excellent replacement playing the lone striker role and he was unlucky when the opposing keeper made an excellent save from his first real effort. Yateley proved to be a strong physical team and equalised just before half time through a defensively scrappy goal. HT 1-1
 
As the second half developed we asserted both our fitness and passing onto the game and a through ball from Sean Tollervey found Jellis in the inside right channel to slide the ball past the oncoming keeper.
 
Both 17 year old central defenders, Owen Roundell and Mcaulie Stubbs, had excellent games and stood up well to some physical challenges with some excellent tackles and good distribution after winning the ball. As the boys started to dominate the game many goalscoring chances became available and the third goal was a very similar goal to the second goal with Jellis smashing the ball in from 10 yards out after another good ball from Tollervey and smart run. FT 1-3
 
The game was a good test for a very young Sholing team and the scoreline could have been more however the performance and result as part of our pre-season programme was very encouraging and positive. We now have further games on Monday at Wellow v Cadnam Utd and on Wednesday at Fareham Town.
 
Report by Mark Stupple