The Sports Bounce Back!

After a tough introduction back into the Combined Counties Premier Division North, it was up to The Sports to respond, in their way was Wokingham and Emmbrook FC who also suffered defeat on the opening day to Reading City and would be looking to respond themselves.

The Sports lined up with Henry Poole in goal, one change to the back four, Stephen Langley comes back in for Charlie Wikham, Lois Dailey, Joe Smith and Trisdon Andrews make up the rest of the back line, Barry named an unchanged midfield three of Jordan Ireland (C), Tommy O'Neil and Thomas Kanek, Jake Beck pulled up in the warm up changing Barry's plan last minute, naming a front three of Mark Bitmead, Harrison Livingstone and Alfie Lal.

The first half saw Bedfont Sports playing some nice football but just lacking those final passes to break the deadlock, Wokingham were sitting back attempting to hit The Sports on the counter. But the Sports back four where picking the ball up high on the pitch allowing The Sports to play higher when with some nice football on display Mark Bitmead finds himself on the edge of the box drifting right to left in the 28th minute and with a low powerful shot cuts across the goal wrong footing the Wokingham goalkeeper finding itself in the bottom right corner, 1-0 to The Sports! Mark must have a thing for scoring goals in quick succession because on the 31st minute he popped up again and put The Sports 2-0 up. Bedfont began to dominate the rest of the first half and continued to ask questions of the Wokingham defence when on the 40th minute Tommy O'Neil whips in a beauty of a cross which the Wokingham goalkeeper second guessed allowing Stephen Langley to leap up and head in Bedfont's 3rd and grabbing his fist goal for The Sports, 3-0.

HT BSFC 3-0 WEFC

The second half was underway and The Sports were looking to protect the score line and see the game out. The half was very much like the first with Bedfont looking like they would add to the score line but a stubborn Wokingham back line was going to make that very hard. Both sides had chances but honestly very toothless, from a Wokingham perspective they nullified a lot the Bedfont attacks and thats testament to the team character they showed during the second half. As for The Sports we played some great football at times and looked very comfortable throughout the game but lacked that cutting edge in the final third during the second half and on another day would cause a bunch of issues for teams, so lots of positives given the lads had to show something after losing last weekend. The game finished 3-0 to Bedfont Sports picking up our first 3 points in the league.

Man of the Match was none other than Mark Bitmead, thoroughly deserved as he has been great since putting a Sports shirt on. Mark has 4 goals and 2 assist in 3 games, proving to be deadly in front of goal and was the difference maker in the game. The Sports also kept their first clean sheet after conceding 7 goals in 2 games and honestly the back line was very solid, overall the squad played really well and showed great character to bounce back from a tough defeat.

Finally a massive thank you to Wokingham and Emmbrook FC, some good people with great support it was a pleasure to host you at The Rec, good luck for the rest of the season and we look forward to meeting again in the return fixture!