Wycombe Lions (11/02/2001)
2000 - 2001 Season, Hithercroft Under 14s



This game was scheduled to be played at the Lion’s ground and they had done their best to prepare the ground by forking and partial re-turfing during the week. However, the referee decided (on safety grounds) that the game could not go ahead on that pitch. We checked that our ground was playable and agreed to switch the fixture for a noon kick-off. Once again, we were only able to field 10 players and one of them, Jason Guy, had left his boots at school. The referee offered to loan us a pair of his son’s and so the kick-off was delayed for another 12 minutes whilst I went to collect them and Jason squeezed his size 9 feet into the size 8 boots.

The first half was played in fine drizzle and Laurence Dunn opened the scoring by curving the ball from his corner kick through Lee Hudson’s hands and into the Hithercroft net. After about half an hour of play, spent mostly in the Hithercroft half, Phil McGuire lobbed Lee for the Lion’s second goal. Hithercroft’s account was opened two minutes later when Paul Yandell’s short corner went to Dewayne Dublin who hit the ball across the goal-mouth for Adeel Iqbal to back-heel it into the net. The score remained at 2-1 until half time.

The rain stopped during the interval and kept away for the remainder of the game. Shortly after the restart Phil put the ball wide of the diving Hithercroft keeper to score again and Chris Hall added two more to put the Lions 5-1 up. Chris again put the ball into the net but was ruled offside. Five minutes before the end, from a Lion’s goal-kick, Dewayne collected the ball and passed to Jason to score Hithercroft’s second goal. Just before the final whistle in a goal-mouth melee, Matt Seaton scored the final goal for the Lions, the final score being 6-2.

Once again the game was played in good spirit between the players, officials and supporters.