The Youth team were out battled tonight by a Wokingham side reduced to ten men an hour. Mind you, the last 15 minutes was 10 a side as Lewis Driver received a second yellow and faced the marching orders. Ryan Hazell was also carried off with half hour remaining with a nasty ankle injury.

We started the game at a high tempo and had Wokingham on the back foot. It was this pressure that saw Wokingham reduced to 10 men when their defender was adjudicated to have brought down the last man outside the area. This reduction spurred Wokingham on and we were caught twice in a matter of 10 minutes when sloppy defending allowed Wokingham to score without reply. We continued to dominate the half but couldn't score. When we did pull a goal back we had their keeper to thank as he fumbled an easy shot from Ian Henry was just outside the box.

The second half we never really got out of the blocks and with the referee throwing around yellow cards like confetti (we picked up 5!). We then lost 2 key players to injury when Ryan Hazell landed awkwardly on an ankle and Chris Ellis pulled up with a back injury. it was also only a matter of time before the referee evened out the sides when he harshly, in my view, booked Lewis Driver for the second time claiming a mistimed tackle. Back to ten all and with the loss of 3 influential players we dug deep and took the game to Wokingham. The woodwork came into play when we rattled a post late on and we had keeper Kieran Hudson to thank with a point blank save in the last minute when we were caught on the break.
All in all a dismal night but hopefully the lads will learn from this display.