Our U23s vs Ilkley Town U23s – a brief match report

IlkleyTown U23’s 0
Frickley Athletic U23’s 3

We regularly hear the famous trope trotted out ‘Ah, but can they do it on a cold Monday night in Ilkley’ – well, yes they can & also it is worth noting that Ilkley regularly features in the 3 coldest places on planet earth, alongside Emley in August & Yakutsk in deepest winter

So our Young Azzurri got their new season up & running last night away to Ilkely – & whilst there were some new diamonds unearthed by Martin, Tony & Paul, it was business as usual. A very strong team performance against a very decent Ilkley team on a plastic pitch (grrrrrrrr…..) that enhanced our boys passing game.

The Young Guns finally got their season underway last night with a tough visit to Ilkley Town U23’s.

They got off to great start when debutant Owen Moule played a great through ball to Harry McCudden who fired a fierce shot straight at the home goalkeeper but somehow the ball squirmed under his body and found its way into the back of the net.

The game was pretty even as both teams were playing some good football but both defences were dealing with most of the dangerous attacks, we had impressive Leo Cosgrove making his debut at full back along side James Nicklin & Ben Jennings who were all superb, along GK Alfie Denton who gave a really confident performance on his debut for the 23’s.

16 year old Freddie Dale was introduced from the bench halfway through the 1st half, he showed maturity well beyond his years, confident on the ball, chasing & pressing our opponents not giving them a minute.

The impressive Bailey Cowsell then got fouled on the edge of the box just before halftime & up stepped inform Harry McCudden to take the free kick. Would it be a sophisticated well drilled ‘straight off the training ground’ effort? No chance, Harry took 3 steps back & leathered the skin off it to fire an unstoppable left foot drive low into the bottom corner; 2-0 at half time.

Second half was very similar to the 1st half with both teams trying to play football in the right way with open clear chances being cancelled out by both defences.

Spencer Moses was introduced in the second half to sit in front of the back 4 & maybe protect the visitors 2 goal lead. Well that’s what we thought until he ended up having a thunderous shot from easily 25 yards tipped over the bar & then he burst through several midfield challenges to play a slide rule pass between defenders to send Bailey Cowsell clear to superbly place the ball past the advancing goal keeper 3-0 to the Blues
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New captain Tom Cotson was at the heart of everything in midfield & showed his qualities throughout the game along with teammates Ashton Johnson & Lucas Brown who both contributed to the visitors all round great team performance.

The Paul Man MOTM went to Spencer Moses who was outstanding 2nd half, he was instrumental in securing the well deserved 3 points with his all action performance. Well done Spencer 👏

Next week’s fixture v Doncaster Elite has been postponed as Frickley U18’s are in FA Youth Cup (at home to North Ferriby – date & time TBC) so our next fixture is Thursday 9th October, our 1st home of the season v RIASA Bradford – it would be good to see plenty of you at the Wez supporting the boys