Today we travelled into Oxfordshire to play the first of our pre season friendly matches against Radley Youth, who finished runners up in the Oxford League last season.
I wanted to try a few different things today and a few of our players were again asked to play out of their comfort zones as we try to keep educating them and teaching them to be adaptable and appreciate what goes into playing in someone else’s position.
I had thought that by doing this against such a good side we may end up losing the game and I explained to the players it was about the performance and not the result during pre season.
But I needn’t have worried as the lads went and played as well as I’ve ever seen them play, comfortably beating our opponents 1-0, after a first half strike from Josh Bolton. Although the score line made it look close it was far from that, with ASC having 2 goals disallowed for offside and hitting the bar and post on a number of occasions.
This was flowing football at its best and at times was breathtaking to watch. However this was only a friendly and now we’ve set the standard, we have to push on and try to maintain or even better it as we get closer to the start of what I expect to be another long, hard season.