Aston Villa Colts 2 EKYC 9

A break in the weather saw us visit Aston Villa Colts at the Priory Pitches in Blantyre. Our opponents had been on a good run of results prior to the break for the bad weather. The continued absence of Scott Mitchell meant a re-shuffle of the pack.
Dean Arrol moved into centre midfield, Gary McCulloch to right back, Christopher Park to left back, Darren Smith to centre half and Cameron Gibson to centre forward.

The changes worked almost immediately with Sam Hill bringing out a great save from the opponents keeper. From the corner Ryan Kelly swung the ball in and again the kepper had a great save. We kept up our early pressure and played some great passing football, probably the best all season, but some great goalkeeping kept us out for 10 minutes.

The breakthrough came after some quick thinking between Ryan Kelly & Dean Arrol who whipped the ball in for CAMERON GIBSON to head home. Our pressure was constant and again Dean ran beyond the defence to fire a ball across goal that RYAN KELLY finnished off at the back post.

There was no break in the pressure and in almost a carbon copy move CAMERON GIBSON added a third. With the end of the period approaching DEAN ARROL got his reward with a chipped cross from the left which went over the line before Cameron Gibson made sure. The ref gave the goal to Dean, probably to stop him moaning !!!!!

At the start of the second period, John Dingwall, Thomas McGuire and Jamie Cunningham came on. Almost immediately we were five up when a Ryan Kelly cross into the box was missed by everyone, but fired into the net by an unfortunate Colts player.

SCOTT GRAHAM added a sixth with a great header from another corner.

At the end of the second period it was 6-0, and more changes were made bringing on trialists Graham Baillie and Bobby Barclay.

Due to the changes Colts came into it and scored a good goal on the break to make it 6-1.

LIAM CRICHTON added to his seasons's tally before CAMERON GIBSON completed his hat trick to make it 8-1. Colts then scored another after James Kinniburgh had made a great save from a free kick, but the rebound broke to a Colts player who made it 8-2.

Word then spread throught the team that the next goal scored would be our 100th of the season, and it was no surprise when left winger RYAN KELLY finished the scoring to make it a resounding 9-2 win.

Man of the Match was awarded by the Aston Villa Colts manager to DEAN ARROL for his tireless performance, having a hand in at least 5 of the goals.

The team that started was:
Kinniburgh, McCulloch, Park, Smith, Graham, Kerr, Arrol, Kelly, Hill, Gibson & Chrichton. Subs: McGuire, Cunningham, Dingwall, Baillie & Barclay.