"Snow" storm in Ely

Mens 4's travelled to Ely for the second time this season. Last time against Ely 3's it was Desert Storm where we played at their temporary home where the pitch was covered in a fine sand. This time we were treated to a game on their newly opened Home pitch. We travelled expecting to find a surface which was an improvement on the patchwork quilt that was their previous surface but it was not to be.

When we reached the pitch, we thought that Ely City had it's own microclimate and had had a heavy fall of snow. All over the pitch there was a covering of heavy sand. Watching the preceding ladies match we could see that it was playing very very slow, with the ball just dying on the surface unless it was smaked hard.

The game started with Kettering facing just 10 Ely players. But the additional player soon arrived. Kettering started in a well organised manner, paying a tight defence and not taking any risks or making any silly mistakes. Ely huffed and puffed, and applied some pressure but couldn't find a way through.

Kettering had the odd bright spot of play and won a couple of short corners which couldn't be converted. But the claggy pitch was preventing any possibility of slick passing and movement.

Then disaster, after 15 minutes Kettering made their substitutions , whilst a bit of confusion set in and players were working out how they were supposed to be playing Ely took the opportunity to put 3 goals past the Kettering keeper. All were of a similar nature, with some good movement and running off the ball caused the defence to be chasing shadows. The final shots on target were from around 3 yards out.

Kettering to their credit, regrouped and dug in to see out the half and managed to repel the further attacks.

A little bit of re-organisation and instruction at half time set kettering up to defend the second half and prevent Ely from scoring any further goals. The last act of the game was to defend a short corner. The intial hit was well defended but the follow up struck the foot of a defender directly in front of goal with the obvious penalty flick being awarded. The tall centre forward fro Ely strode up with a swagger to take the flick. Only to see his flick go high wide and handsome past the goal.

Overall a good defensive display for 60 minutes and not the start to 2019 that was hoped for. Next week sees a home match against Ely 3's with the opportunity to get back to winning ways after their heavy defeat to mens 3's.