Garden Village became the first youth side to go away from the Marston’s Stadium with a point this season. They deserved it for their first half performance and they led at the break through a penalty. They pressed us, put us under pressure and stopped us playing, too many of our passes went astray and our normal style of play was missing. As the second half wore on we put them under enormous pressure and eventually with 5 minutes to go we scored.

The Village went ahead on 15 minutes when an innocuous challenge by keeper Aaron Jones was deemed worthy of a penalty, the Village striker appeared to come in with a high foot but he won the decision. Aaron Jones went the right way and got his hands to the ball but it had too much power on it for him to keep it out.  Spurred on by this the Village battled for every ball and knocked us out of our stride. When we did get in a scoring position we failed to trouble the keeper and often passed up the chance of a shot.

The half time talk had its desired affect and we came out with far more purpose in the second half. An early free kick saw their keeper forced to punch clear as we looked for an early equaliser. Aaron Jones made a save on the hour but we were starting grow into the game. Village were conceding numerous free kicks but we couldn’t find the elusive goal. Several wrong options were taken before Sean Hanbury played a great ball in but Hakeem Al-Haddi couldn’t quite make contact when well placed. The equaliser finally came with 5 minutes to go, Jack Hurley picked up the ball wide right, beat a defender and got into the area before driving a low cross to the near post where Sean Hanbury scored with a right footed shot from a couple of yards. It was no more than we deserved after our second half showing and 2 minutes from time we almost went ahead. The ball was crossed to Jack Todd who twice headed the ball and the keeper grabbed the ball inches from the line as Sean Hanbury closed in on it. In the last seconds we put ourselves under pressure when we gave away a needless free kick 25 yards out allowing the Village a last stab at getting the three points. Thankfully we cleared the ball ahead of the final whistle.

Lido side – Aaron Jones – 2 Hakeem Al-Haddi – 3 Jack Fleming – 4 Luke Evans – 5 Matthew Andrews – 6 Jack Hurley –

7 Jake Simeone – 8 Charlie Hamer – 9 Jack Todd – 10 Sean Hanbury – 11 Azeem Arshad

Subs – 12 Jordan Downs – 14 Lewis Clement – GK Kieran Burridge