August 28th 2007
Llandudno Junction Reserves v Penrhyn United.

Welcome back to the Home of Football a real football arena, where we understand that to play the beautiful game you need a flat clear surface. After the farcical performance that was witnessed on our opening game we had our first Home fixture of the 2007 – 2008 season and an opportunity to put right quickly what was so severely wrong on our opening fixture.
As most football managers would agree at this level, getting a team together for midweek 18.30 kick off is a challenge in itself, what with work commitments, forgetful players, BABY SITTING duties and any other excuses you may hear. That is our challenge and we accept that we will have our ups and downs throughout a season. After putting in our team sheet and time ticking on I began to experience the ‘squeaky bum time’ that Sir Alex talked about a few seasons ago, you may think its to early for this but this was not down to the awful performance last Saturday but the lack of our Keeper who was ‘at the gate’ with 10 mins to K.O, which gate I do not know but it certainly wasn’t the one leading to the Flyover. With Scott and Hobbo both back from International duty and the First team manager wanting John Paul to have a run out the squad was as follows: -

Mike Hughes
Sion Watson, Phil Williams, Scott Jones, Aaron Jones,
Chris Lloyd, Nathan Watson ©, Danny Parry, Chris Darbey 1
Bobby Colville 1 and Matt Hughes 2
James Hobson 1 on for Sion Watson
John Paul Colville 1 on for Bobby Colville
Tom Roberts on for Chris Lloyd
Unused subs Danny Jones Karl Davies.

The Flyover was witnessing one of the sunniest days for some time, which brought out the local supporters and The CHAIRMAN! With the new tracksuits having arrived Richie came down with Steve to make the presentation and we rounded up some of the squad for a quick photo shoot obviously given more time we would have got some of the better looking members of the squad but we didn’t have that long!
As Scott was available we put him straight back into the team, had a quick shuffle of some positions and motivated the players the best we could. Once again our preparation wasn’t the best and the warm up needs some more thought but saying that we were ready for our first derby of the season, which this season we can boast of having three isn’t the Clwyd league great.

The lads started well and quickly got into their rhythm and played the ball around quite well. After 5 minutes we had our first real chance, which was netted by Matt and got us off the start that we needed. Some fine football was being displayed and the kick up the behind which we got in our opening game was obviously still being felt by some of the lads, their pride was hurt and they were desperate to put it right. On 10 minutes Darbey found himself wide on the left, with the ball at his feet, he ran at the heart of Penrhyn’s defence and quickly shifted the ball out of his feet and shot low and hard goal wards, which resulted in our second goal of the game 2-0 up and the bit between the teeth. The next ten minutes saw us dominate the play and were in total control of the football match when Penrhyn broke away and attacked our goal which Sion Watson stopped, but this was a sign that we were getting complacent and Penrhyn were warming to the task. The lads lost their way, a little which gave Penrhyn the impetus to gain a foothold in the match, which resulted in both sides having chances. After forty minutes of some very open football Penrhyn found our goal, with a shot from Josh Jones, 2-1 just what we didn’t want before half time, this was the wake up call the lads needed, they started to go about their jobs with more focus and managed to get a goal back 3-1 but with only a minute to go to half time Sion went down after an innocuous challenge and damaged his knee after an assessment he limped to the side lines hoping to recover for the second half, unfortunately for the team he was unable to carry on.

Half time saw us with a 3-1 advantage but a decision to make on who was to replace the very impressive Sion. After some discussion on what was required for the second half, we decided to drop Darbey to right back, move Chris Lloyd over to the left and bring James Hobson on to the right hand side, which kept our shape and balance. Instantly James made an impression and scored with his very first touch 4-1 and we were enjoying the game for a change, our ability to keep the ball was very impressive and tired the Penrhyn’s team which resulted in us extending our lead on 62 minutes with another goal from Matt 5-1 saw us making our second change of the night by bringing on John Paul for Bobby who took a knock to his ankle and was limping noticeably, we kept up the pressure on our visitors and Matt went close with a thunderous effort which rebounded of the up right which denied him his hat trick. With the game out of reach for Penrhyn, everyone thought they were Tierry Henry and even young Scott Jones went close with a long-range effort, and talking of the French Star Darbey assures me that his PASS to Danny was deliberate and straight out of the French masters handbook. With Chris Lloyd struggling with a thigh injury we made our FINAL substitution of this game and brought on the lethargic Tom Roberts who surprisingly got himself about the park and should have scored when he tried to recreate his goal from Pen but on this occasion finished with a weak shot. As the game drew to a close John Paul reminded everyone who was there that he is back with a fantastic goal and a gentle reminder to the First team manager that he still has a lot to offer Llandudno Junction.
Final score 6-1.
A remarkable performance in contrast to our opening game and a well deserved three points, and to those who criticised Penrhyn, just remember the 25th August 2007. We hope to see you all again on Saturday when we play Aston Park Rangers at The Home of Football 14.30 kick off.