Under 13's. Tameside & District League. Division 1.
Away v Haughton Rangers

  Result - Reddish North End 4 Haughton Rangers 0

Match Report: James Emmerson

A wonderful end to the season saw the boys virtually assure themselves of fourth place with a confident away win, and leave one very happy manager yet again full of pride.

Although 3D Dynamos can overtake us if they win their remaining matches – and if they do so then they will deserve fourth – nothing can take away from the great achievement of the team. They have claimed 10 points from their last six matches, which is no mean feat, and to finish off today with a clean sheet and some decent football at times was just fantastic.

We had agreed an early kick off to allow all the City & United supporting people (well, someone has to!) time to get to that game. However, the pitch we were going to play on was an alarming sight – one of my photos will show you the deep rut that many of the pitch markings had formed – and there was no way we could let the boys play on it, so we had to move pitches, wait for all the players to come, then learn that the ref had let us down! So it was 10.10 by the time we got started, on a bone dry, rock hard and uneven surface.

I must point out that Haughton only had 10 players, for a variety of reasons, and their regular goalie was not playing, so we picked a good morning to come in that regard. However, the boys took nothing for granted and after a good even period early on, started to get in behind Haughton. James got the first after he received Sam’s pass and shot at goal, the keeper spilling his effort over the line. James then had a perfectly good header disallowed for offside before Sam smacked home for 2-0. Callum was soon in on the act with a lovely swivel and crisp left footed finish right in the corner, and there were several other chances we couldn’t convert.

Haughton were understandably deflated after a tough half in which they’d been down to nine players for a while, after a robust (but perfectly fair) tackle from captain Josh had seen one of their players limp off. He reappeared for the second half but Reddish continued to have the lion’s share of possession and chances. Sam poked home from a corner for 4-0 and there were other opportunities, while at the other end Haughton got very little joy as the team played very effectively as a unit to keep the ball and break up the play.

Hopefully in the remaining couple of weeks we will have a friendly with Haughton. We are two pretty evenly matched sides and it will be a good test for us. But as it was, we had too much for our hosts today, along with the good fortune of playing them when they were clearly below full strength and a full compliment, as I’ve said.

But take nothing away from Reddish who were superb today. Great stuff!

Scorers : Sam (2) James (1) Callum (1) 

Man of the match : Daniel Larkin (excellent in midfield again today)