The start of the season is always exciting as the new teams size each other up. For the past three seasons Mellor U12 have had a stable and incredibly successful team but now most of that team has moved on to the next level. In their place is a largely young and untested team with a spine of experienced players. Today was their first test.
These two friendlies were played against strong rivals who also had youngish teams and both games were a good challenge for Mellor.
Against Wilmslow Mellor started brightly with some quick darting runs into the opponents half and an early goal taken with great confidence by Eddie Jenkins. However, this didn’t last. Mellor were finding it tough going and too many passes started to go astray. Wilmslow too struggled to hold on to the ball and a slugging match began. George Shonfeld made some neat close passes but most of the attempts at passing were too long and shots taken from too far out. It was no surprise when the Wilmslow number 4 bulldozed his way through a sleepy Mellor defence and scored an equaliser. Both teams walked away at halftime looking a little shell shocked at physical reality of a proper competitive match. The second half began badly for Mellor with the Wilmslow number 4 once again using his strength to push through some weak defending and hammer the ball into the Mellor goal. This finally seemed to wake Mellor up and they quickly scored an equalizing goal from the nippy Drew Bickerton. Eddie Jenkins followed up with a straight forward pop in front of goal and Mellor started to pass the ball around a little more comfortably. Will Macdonald made a great save with his legs to keep the score at 3-2 to Mellor and Wilmslow started to look ragged. Too many of their players were getting penalised or taking unnecessary risks. Sam Griffiths was almost able to score when the Wilmslow keeper went on a slightly bonkers run up the touchline and soon after that Ben Tipping sent in a low shot that took Mellor to 4-2. As the game came to an end Joey Bissell found himself alone with the ball in the middle and calmly shot it home to give Mellor a comfortable 5-2 win.