Match number: 1538Saturday saw the Reserves secure their first point of the season. Going out against a side that had managed to score 17 goals in their first three games, a watertight defence was needed. With Tim Vince coming back in between the sticks and a back four comprising of Phil Harper, Nick Clarke, Mike Frost and Stuart Jackman things were looking good. The game got off to a good start with both sides playing some good flowing football. UniS OB were playing 4-3-3, which wasn't expected, but it didn't cause our back four too many problems. Jackman dropped into a sweeper role leaving Frost, Clarke and Harper to mark the front three. A lot of hard tackles were put in quite early on. Ten minutes into the match one of the UniS centre backs was taken off after colliding with Rob Bailey and breaking his nose (which was still bleeding after 90 minutes).
An unstoppable partnership was formed on the day with John Moore and Rob Townsend taking command in the middle of the park. It was great to watch John distributing the ball with ease rather than turning 360s all afternoon. Two newly promoted players made a great impression in the form of Jonathon Harper (yes another one of the famous GCW clan) and Mark Fish. The latter, who normally plays as a forward, started on the right of midfield, causing a few problems for UniS with a few great runs down the flank. Jon Harper partnered Rob Bailey up-front, winning balls in the air and creating a couple of chances.
So after one yellow card for UniS and a couple of scuffles in the middle of the park both sides came off at half time for their oranges. The second half saw one change by GCW with Bryan Frew replacing Ed Gray on the left of midfield. With things starting off just like the first half there was plenty of action in both halves. UniS won a couple of free kicks just inside the Guildford half but they failed to pull anything exciting out of the bag despite pushing two of their back four up into the box. Russell Hughes came on 10 minutes into the second half replacing Rob Bailey and 10 minutes later Nick Collis came on for Jonathon Harper. Russell and Arthur had decided to move Mark Fish forward to play alongside Russ and Nick dropped into right midfield.
UniS caught GCW on the counter a couple of times but each effort was easily quashed by the rock solid back four with committed sliding tackles. The best chance of the game came just 3 minutes from time when John Moore laid a short corner to Frew who turned onto his right foot and drove a waist height cross along the box, the ball went past everyone except Hughes who flew in with a volley at the backpost but he saw his effort just go wide.
Despite not taking all three points the Reserves took a good morale boost away from the game. A back four that looked rigid and composed, a midfield duo who worked hard for each other and a confident performance from the man in goal should help the team turn over a new leaf after going into this game on the back of three confidence shattering defeats. Of course we mustn't forget to mention Jim Wallis who was on the bench but didn't play (some excuse about him being too tired after pulling a lap dancer from Secrets……yeah, right Jim) although he did a good job of running the line.
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