SHEFFIELD FC 4 GRIMSBY 9

Arriving early with a full bench gave a relaxed team atmosphere before a ball had been kicked.

Immediately the game started Grimsby relaxed and looked confident with and without the ball against opposition that started the game in second position in the league.

An early goal was equalised, Grimsby then exploited the extra space on the newly marked and enlarged pitch to move 4-1 ahead.  With 2 minutes of the half left Sheffield made a big push to reduce the half time lead; with 30 seconds left on the half Grimsby tried to play out of a tight defence position and paid the price – 4-2.  It’s very hard to ask players that are excelling on their touch play to ‘boot the ball,’ this was a situation when ‘the boot’ was called for as the clock would have done the rest.

Half time and you see peoples different personalities; some are depressed that we have conceded a late goal, others are positive that it’s the break and we have a 2 goal advantage to work on.  As manager I only want to hear the positives.

Immediately into the second period Grimsby restored their 3 goal advantage, Sheffield replied with a 3^rd (5-3), the next and last Sheffield goal was at 7-4.  From the first 5 minutes Grimsby had maintained a close but comfortable lead.

For the last 10 minutes Sheffield used their GK as a ‘flyer’ which brought Leigh Graves the Grimsby GK into the meat of the game as he was called on several times to make some top class saves.  The down side of using a GK as an outfielder is that when the team loses the ball the GK is way out of goal; Leigh, shooting straight after a save almost replied with interest on several occasions.

This was the first time Grimsby has had a team on the pitch and a team of replacement outfielders on the bench; a huge plus was that no matter which 4 was on the pitch the quality of attack and defence was unaltered.

After the game an official told me he considered Leigh Graves the top GK in all 3 FA divisions, high praise indeed.  Josh Parry at 16 is punching above his age now, what a player, if he can build on this start no saying where he can go futsal wise (scored his 1^st goal).  Peter Herriman has always been known as one of the best players in the Grimsby FL; against Sheffield he delivered a top class performance.  Matt Horner was plucked from one of the lower Grimsby teams (no insult intended) and surpassed any expectations.  Luke McLennan, Paul Wilkinson and Kirk Russell showed all those hours of playing futsal 3 teams a week was to no avail, they was outstanding.  Mathew Payne had his best game to date, and looks to have mentally solved the tactical problems of futsal, Mathew will be a major opposition threat from now on in.

Glowing praise all round, this was a team performance, but it would be churlish not to give John Frary ‘man of match;’ his 2 first half goals gave us a cushion, his 2 second half goals eased the pressure, he was brilliant at both ends of the field.

Next week table toppers Middlesborough; Grimsby are prepared.