Our senior and U14 football teams recently made the journey across ‘The Peedie Water’ to play Kirkwall Grammar School. Here, Mr Grant, coach of the U14 team tells us how they fared…

After an early start and a choppy crossing across to St Margaret’s Hope the Under 14 and Senior Teams arrived at Kirkwall Grammar at around 11am thanks to Kirkwall Grammar kindly providing a minibus and staff car to transport the two teams to the school. With the last ferry being changed to 3.30pm due to the weather the Under 14s were rushing to get changed and head down to the pitch only to be met by lashing wind and rain.

It was a cagey start to the match with both teams cancelling each other out. Both Wick and Kirkwall settled into the match showing spells of good passing and possession of the ball. In particular, Mark Macadie and Conor Farquhar (playing centre midfield and left back respectively) both played key roles in getting a foot on the ball and playing some excellent football. As a result, Wick slowly started to create chances with some excellent through balls allowing our forwards to get in behind the defence and fire shots at the Kirkwall goalkeeper. Two of these brought excellent chances from corners with inviting crosses from Michael Steven unfortunately not converted. Kirkwall were still dangerous and created a few chances of their own with Conner Pattinson, Scott MacDonald and Ben Sutherland excellent in snuffing out many of the opposition’s attacks. The breakthrough finally came five minutes before half time with Sam Barclay bursting through the Kirkwall defence before teeing up Alan Mathieson to coolly slot home from inside the Kirkwall penalty area.

Into the second half and again it started off a cagey affair with both teams struggling to get their foot on the ball. Wick slowly started to control the game and created several chances with long range strikes forcing the Kirkwall goalkeeper into some tremendous saves. Eventually Wick found an important breakthrough and second goal with a low drilled shot into the bottom left hand corner of the net courtesy of Michael Steven. After going 2-0 up and looking comfortable to see out the game Wick became complacent and Kirkwall Grammar started to get a foothold in the game. Confusion in the Wick penalty area and a failure to get the ball cleared resulted in Kirkwall getting a goal back with 10 minutes to go. This spurred Kirkwall on and they went from strength to strength in the search for an equaliser. Some excellent passing down the Kirkwall right hand side was finished off in style with a chipped finish from the right hand side of the box nestling into the side netting to equalise the game at 2-2. The last five minutes were a tense affair with both teams pushing for a winner but unfortunately  pushing that bit too much with the final pass deserting them. Full time score 2-2.

Can we take this opportunity to thank the referees for overseeing both matches and to the Kirkwall teaching and canteen staff for the lovely soup, sandwiches and juice that they provided for both teams after the game; much appreciated after the battering wind and rain during the matches.

A senior match report will follow.

U14s Starting Line-up – 4-2-3-1

Ben Sutherland

William Mackay

Conner Pattinson

Scott MacDonald

Conor Farquhar

Mark Macadie

John Snoad

Andrew Sutherland

Sam Barclay

Michael Steven

Alan Mathieson

Substitutes:

Michael Gunn

Ross Cormack

Lee Oman

Michael Sutherland