Golds draw, Clarets lose despite good performance

Golds started brightly playing some good football and looking confident on the ball. Birmingham were opened up with some good passing and a goal bound shot was parried in to the path of Bill Appleby who couldn't manage to tuck the rebound away. We continued to have the best of the half with their keeper making more saves than our own.

The second half went much the same way as the first with some good interplay and passing and us going close with some long range shots. Tony Buckleys defence splitting pass to Rob Ratcliffe left him one on one with the keeper but his shot slid just wide so the game ended 0 - 0 although we were probably the better side.

Burntwood 4 Old Corinthians Clarets 0

Whilst the scoreline suggests differently, the Clarets performed well against a very strong and top of the league Burntwood side. All of the team were comfortable in possession and playing the easy pass paid off and we retained the ball pretty well - perhaps better than in any game so far this year. Ross made a couple of smart saves in the first half and was helped by Burntwood hitting the post, but we also had chances and on a couple of occasions shot wide when well positioned. The 0-0 half-time scoreline was a fair reflection of the score. Burntwood scored twice early in the second half, possibly the best two goals I've seen this season, and this gave them control of the game and it then became more difficult to create as they sat a bit deeper and protected the lead. In the final few minutes Burntwood added two more but even they admitted afterwards that the scoreline didn't reflect the balance of the game.  Well done on the quality of play boys - I really enjoyed watching!