Team from left to right: Olly Pollock, Freddie Worth, Cameron McIntosh, Charlie Ryder, Sam Degazon, Freddie Frankish, Oliver McIntosh (GK), Kneeling: Fergus Mainey.
For the team that has been promoted at every time of asking this season, this was going to be a tougher challenge.
The boys were in good spirits when they arrived and we were first match on against Huddersfield Dragons. We started strongly and were passing and moving the ball around beautifully. It is the first time I’ve managed the team this season and I was hugely impressed how well they played as a team – I know from experience it’s not always that easy to get boys playing for each other but this lot had it sorted. They came out 3-0 winners. So onto the next match, York A, we knew this would be a hard match but I just told the boys to play how they’d been playing, lots of passing and lots of goals, they didn’t disappoint with the match ending up another 3-0 win for Thirsk. Next up, what we thought would be the toughest of the day, Harrogate A, and it didn’t disappoint – they had some strong players but our boys were more than up to the task. It was end to end action but Harrogate got a short corner in the last two minutes, the ball was injected and Harrogate fired a shot into the left post, Freddie Worth blocked it excellently with his stick but then it literally slowly dribbled onto his foot, and I mean very slowly, the umpire awarded Harrogate a penalty flick! Never seen one awarded at this age group, it seemed very harsh but we had to live with it. The Harrogate boy took an excellent flick which Oliver had no chance with so it was 1-0 – we had less than 1 minute to get one back – we threw everything at them eventually a through ball from Olly P to Fergus in the D, then with a bit of 3D action he smashed it into the top corner of the net………………………awesome goal and a very well deserved draw for Thirsk. Next match was Harrogate B, the boys again were dominant in this match but we did allow Harrogate B to sneak one goal past us but we were happy as it ended up 3-1 to Thirsk. So to the last match of the day, Airedale A – we knew we needed quite a few goals to give us a chance of beating Harrogate A on goal difference and the boys didn’t disappoint, we ended up 4-0 winners with Fergus getting a fantastic sliding goal in the dying seconds!
So that was it we finished second on goal difference by one to Harrogate A, a fantastic performance by the boys which continues there march towards the A League to fight it out for some silverware in the last tournament. If they play like they did today then they have every chance of achieving this.
Players Player: Sam Degazon – he is lightning quick on the wings.
Managers Player: Oliver McIntosh – not the busiest day in goal but always up for the challenge.