Team: Crowther, Coyne, Ford, Harris, Brown, Davenport, O’Brien, Smith, Morgan-Cummings, German, Arthur
Subs Used: Vanterpool for Davenport and Wright replaced Vanterpool, Fernandez for Morgan-Cummings
Some shaky defending cost the U18 team a victory. At 1-0 down, Terry Smith equalised with a right foot belter into the top corner from outside the area. Then Aaron Morgan-Cummings took an excellent first touch and finished neatly when he found himself through on goal after a misplaced defensive header. Wycombe made it 2-2 before half time when Rangers failed to deal with a corner and the scorer found space to knock the ball in from about 10 yards out.
Chris Arthur restored the lead after half time with a low side-foot volley that the keeper might have saved. But the visitors equalised soon after when a player eased through down their left hand side and crossed low to pick out an unmarked colleague in the centre who then side-footed home from close range under no pressure. Overall, Wycombe gave the R’s a good game and deserved their point which also means they remain unbeaten against us this Season
Froods
Thanks to Terry Springett for the following explanation regarding the number of games we play in the Youth Alliance League..
There are 19 games. We play 7 teams home and away and 5 teams only once. The reason we don’t play all 12 teams home and away is that there would then be 24 league matches and also a minimum of 7 Youth Alliance Cup matches, which is far too many to fit in. This unusual situation was brought about because the Clubs voted in favour of a league format for the initial stage of the Cup competition as opposed to a straight knock out situation. If we’d gone with the knock out version then a full 24 match programme would have been played. The league format Cup round gives Clubs the opportunity to play teams from another Conference. So we only play Northampton, Rushden, Brighton, Colchester and Southend once and everyone else in our league twice.
The Youth Kit Sponsors Evening is set for the end of March/beginning of April. Pleased to hear that the Puma Youth Alliance League Cup semi-final will now be played at Harlington on Good Friday, kick off 2pm. Apparently Layer Road wasn’t available and the pitches that they usually play on aren’t in the best condition and the switch was agreed. Well done to both Clubs for coming to this arrangement. The other Southern Section semi-final involves Brighton and Brentford. Lastly, the U18’s game on Saturday against Barnet will be played at Gosling Sports Park in Welwyn Garden City. Please note that the kick off time is later than usual, 11.45am.
Steve Russell