Hempnall FC

Our weekly battle continued with a trip to one of the favourites to gain promotion, Attleborough Town FC.

Our squad was youthful mix with a few last minute editions, Dougie 'Messi' Webber returning from Uni to shore up the defence. We had the experienced pairing of Nick 'the rock' Chapman and Liam 'hazy' Jacques anchoring the centre of the park.

The rest of the squad was made up from mostly under 17's who are improving game after game in the difficult environment, which is men's football.

The game kicked off in a reasonably high tempo (by Attleborough, our tempo was rather slower), the first 20 minutes was a great battle. We were trying to execute our plan, which was to 'park the bus' and they had the task of trying to break us down.

In wasn't until 20 minutes into the game when Attleborough smashed a free kick past Matt 'half way to Oz' Oakley, that Attleborough took the lead.

However their second followed shortly after with a hugely impressive back post volley by the Attleborough player made it 2-0.

Our creative spark came from Danny 'Disco' Elton who was playing in the hole and was picking up the ball and releasing the ever-ready Matty Chapman.

We went into the break with heads held high after a hugely impressive first half performance where we held them to only two goals. One which I was really proud of and truthfully, probably wasn't expecting.

Our plan for the second half was similar to the first, restrict the opposition as much as possible then try and steal one on the break. With only being 2-0 down, we were still in the game although Attleborough were clearly the better side, but if we could keep it at 2-0 for as long as possible then we felt the pressure may build on them slightly especially if we could knick one.

That wasn't to be, we conceded after 55 mins to make it 3-0 and then after such a monumental effort, we started to tire and with only one sub it was always going to be difficult.

In the last 20 mins we were dead on our feet and Attleborough were in full swing they comfortably closed out the game with a flurry of goals in the final 15mins.

The performance was exceptional from the lads, in a situation where you face the league leaders on their own turf with a side that was packed with youth.

Our greatest achievement was that we were still in the game with 30 mins to go. The final score is irrelevant because with 2 more subs we may not have tired quite so quick.