Barnes Stormers kicked off their season on 8th September against Chiswick FC with a 0-0 result to earn their first point and cleansheet of the season.
Following a disappointing 23/24 season that ended in the first week of March '23 with relegation to Division 8 of the Southern Sunday Football League, Barnes were keen to kick off their 24/25 season. Having waited 6 months to play a league game, a number of players that played less than 5 games for the club last season, a number of new signings and being refereed by the league chairman himself, the players were understandably a little nervy.
There were some early meaty challenges from the usual suspect as Barnes looked to assert dominance and set a tone and a pace for the game but once the Stormers got into their groove they started putting together some good passages of play to work up the pitch.
Tommy and Richie offered some powering runs from defence into opposition territory giving us a good base to build attacking plays. Our midfield in the first half worked well together to link up with the forwards to offer some good half chances. In-between rolling subs, the best chance of the half came from some lovely 2 touch football, passing from the back to play CT through into space where he curled a beautiful shot towards the top corner. Chiswick GK did well to leap high and push it away for a corner that Barnes were unable to capitalise on.
The second half saw a few changes to personel and Matthew Reynolds made a debut for the SSFL team in an outfield position doing superbly to hold down the midfield leading some on the touchline to question how Barnes had been able to get Grant Hanley playing with us for the weekend.
The second half started well but we faced a couple of injuries which meant a bit of a shuffle to positions. Getting used to a few unfamiliar positions maybe slowed down the progress of the Stormers but still there were plenty of chances with the lads trying to catch the Chiswick GK off his line on a few occasions - a bit more power and accuracy and on a different day it would have been a goal or two!
In the Barnes goal, Ben put in a commanding performance talking well and collecting loose balls and eating everything that came his way. Distribution was strong and it was his distribution that gave Barnes a different outlet to launch attacks into the opposition box.
With not much between the sides given strong midfield and defensive performances, the game ended 0-0 and the spoils were shared.
Overall the players will be happy with their first game given a first clean sheet and numerous other factors. One half of the management duo Tom Jackson commented on the game, "Honestly really quite happy with the 0-0. We had 5 lads make their debut for the club, another 5 lads that played less than 5 games for the club last season and just 1 pre-season game to introduce a few of the new lads so it's going to take a us another couple of weeks to really find our groove and gel properly before we really get going. If you'd asked me before the game, I would take a clean sheet all day - it's a really solid foundation for us to walk away with and build on. Now we need to take this with us next week and improve our confidence in front of goal to add goals to the mix and add more points to the table".
Squad; Ben, Richie, Mo, Matt M., Tommy, Jesse, Tom J., Eddie, David, Ja-mani-rae, Henrique, Matt R., Tom L., Zavier, Abdi, Carlos
Managers; Jack & Tom J.
Thanks to the club members who came to support; Tom G, Stan & family
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