Report: FC Village 4 Avenue 0

The Village came out on top in their top of the table contest with one of the other sides going for second place with a well earned but hard fought win, the highlight being a hat-trick from Maggot. With Booey’s new arrival coming out of hospital on the Saturday morning meaning he was unavailable the Village were also short of the injured duo Ashley and Ritchie which meant the heart of their midfield was missing. Then when the two Mikes, G and J failed to show the side were lucky that Harper, Martin and Jason had all returned. With Kev and JJ taking over the centre of midfield and Martin and Jason slotting it meant that assistant manager Dave was named as the only sub. However the Avenue had their own problems and it was good to see that they made it to the game, the first at Levers for well over a month.

The Village felt that if they could keep the momentum going from their previous game when they had taken the Bird all the way that they were in with a good chance of winning this four pointer. So straight from the kick off they fought for every ball, contested every tackle and generally let the visitors know they were in for a game. The breakthrough came after about 10 minutes when the ball was cleared out to Jason from a corner and he curled it to the back post for Nick to head home his first goal of the season. Within minutes the Village had doubled their lead when the on fire Maggot was sent clear with a defence splitting pass and he ran on to coolly lob over the advancing keeper. Ten minutes later it was virtually all over as the Village netted a third goal when Maggot was put through again, this time down the right and he raced away to slip it past the keeper for his second. The Village were playing really well and although the Avenue had a fair bit of possession they never really threatened the home goal. Then just before the interval the Village had a great chance to wrap things up when from another corner the ball fell to Kev at the far post but it got stuck under his feet and he was unable to convert.

The half time talk was to expect an early onslaught by the visitors on the home goal in the hope they could get back in to the game and once again although they had a good amount of possession the end product unfortunately for them came to nothing. Knowing that the points were in the bag unless they totally collapsed the Village just went about their job of containing the visitors and they only really came in to the game after they had scored a fourth goal. Once again Maggot went clear but this time it was as much down to him as any one else as he came out best in a tackle just inside the Avenue half and raced clear. This time as he came in to the area to meet the keeper they collided but he still got his shot in and it was 4-0 and he had scored his second hat-trick of the season. That’s 19 for the season so far and he has four games left to pass that elusive 20 goal barrier, which we are sure he will do. With Dave on for the tiring Jason who had done really well the Village now started to find gaps in the Avenue defence and Dave himself Kev and Pete all had chances to increase their lead. Down at the end other the defence got a long awaited and deserved clean sheet and when the final whistle went the Village went off happy knowing that this was a good win with an excellent team display.

Team Line-up

FC Village: Hill: Wilson, Whorton, Hutton, Harper; Metcalf, Machin, Harrison, Byrne; Eaton, Church(Sadler)
Sub not used:

More photos from this game click here