The embers of our long, scorching, arid Summer are not dying and continue to cast their horrible shadow over these crisp early days of Autumn. The very welcome rain and the beautiful early-morning dew of the past week made little or no difference to the sad condition of our pitches. Despite the hard work of our grounds staff and the re-seeding of the entire site, the ball bobbled and wobbled its way around our pitch all through this afternoon.

The effect is simple with players having to argue with the bobble and hops to try to get the thing under control, slowing the process of swift attacking play the is the hallmark of The Bakerees. That said, our visitors were a good team benefitting particularly from a few very skilful individual players.

A slow start from the Bakerees allowed Greenbank to take an early lead but our Seb was having none of it and soon popped in an equaliser. In the absence of our skipper, young Isaac was captain for the day and with his usual tenacity kept our guests at bay until just before the break. The first half ended with the boys 2-1 down but the stand-out memory was of our marauding Seb, making his full debut causing havoc down the visitors left with a dazzling mixture of skill, speed and power. What a superb young player he is.

The second has was barely a minute old when a great through ball from Isaac was met with a glorious touch from Hugo to put Ollie through, but his effort just shaved the wrong side of the visitors post. They then went up the other end and took advantage of our rearranged defence to shoot into a 3-1 lead. But as is their wont, the Bakerees continued to fight and an absolute screamer from Ollie almost tore the roof of the net from the posts, and the fightback was under way. The guests however had different plans and stole another to make it 4-2 before Ollie buried his second from a free kick to get it back to 4-3. With only 2 minutes left the visitors snatched a fifth but the boys would not lie down and a very cool side-footed finish saw Ollie complete his hat trick - but the clock was now playing for Greenbank and our wonderful young team had to settle for their first defeat of the new season. They were a grumpy lot when we sat them down for a chat and as managers we like that. In the grand scheme of things, in this competition the defeat means very little and we will go through to the next round. So, we dust ourselves down and march into Lincoln next Sunday to take on a different team from Greenbank.

In the meantime, if you’re out and about this evening or have a window and the sky is clear, look to the north and maybe take a picture or two with your phone camera.

Today’s Bakerees: Jack, Isaac, Ralph, Eli, Ollie, Hugo, William, Joseph and our newbie Seb.

#upthespa