It’s a bit like groundhog day with the recent conditions, storms on a weekend and steadier weather trough the week. This meant for tricky conditions for both sides. Wittering began the game with the tail wind and proved to be dominant in the early stages.

The breakthrough came after a few attacks led to nothing, when Andrew Moss scored, 1-0, from a tight angle. The being assisted by a perfectly through ball from Luke Smith. The patter of play continued with Wittering’s goalkeeper not being tested in the whole half. Wittering kept their shape down when Lee Booker was sin binned, much to Wittering’s bemusement as it was a case of mistaken identity. 2 minutes before the end of the half saw Wittering have the ball 2 foot over the line, only for the referee waving play on. Whittlesey Athletic Reserves had their tails up as they kept the score down to 1-0 at half time.

Wittering started brightly, and as with previous weeks playing into the wind suited them. They kept the ball down when in possession but also defended stoutly when not. The first goal of the second only took a couple of minutes to come when Lee Croft scored, once again ;being assisted by his strike partner Mossy making it 2-0. Wittering playing lovely football with counter attack after counter attack, whilst Whittlesey enjoyed the lion’s share of possession. The next big turning point was when Andrew Moss seemed to be hacked down in the box, for the referee to wave play on. Then the game became more tense when the Whittlesey winger danced his way into the box and laying the ball off nicely for Whittlesey to get on the score sheet, 2-1.

Wittering showed a lot of class in their game management and worked a few attacks, whilst Whittlesey created very little. Wittering had another big talking point when Lee Croft was taken out in the box, but for the referee to wave play on, again. Wittering broke a couple of minutes later when Croft was played in with a lovely looping ball by Ashley Middleton and he despatched his second of the game, giving Wittering a 3-1 lead heading into the last 10 minutes.

Frustration on all sides intensified when a disagreement between Wittering’s chairmen and the Referee, resulting in Russ Pye being sent away from the pitch with a straight red card. Moments later Josh Watson disagreed with yet another offside decision, only to also be given a straight red card.

Managers comment:

“with multiple games being called off over the weekend we knew it was another chance to put some points on the board. We started the game well, however we failed to capitalise on our early chances. We were lucky not to go in at 2-0 at half time, after the ball had clearly crossed the goal line, but wasn’t given. The weather got progressively worse with the wind blowing towards us in the second half. We know we were u against it with a slender 1-0 lead. The game became quite scrappy and was end to end for some time, suiting them more than us. However, we always possess a lot of danger on counter attacks. The boys saw the game out well and showed great character, once again in tough conditions and most importantly put another 3 points on the board. I can’t praise the boys enough another after the last three weeks in horrendous conditions, continuing to always grind out results.”