National League U19 Alliance

Division E

Wednesday 13th April 2022

Kick Off 14.15 Actual 14.19

Aldershot Town London U19 1 Worthing U19 13, attendance 9

@ Bannister Sports Centre, 3G Pitch

Uxbridge Road

Harrow

HA3 6SW

No Admission or Programme.

This afternoon’s match was an opportunity to visit a ground that is also home to Middlesex County League Premier Division team F.C. Soma. It is a standard cage set up, with a spectator area along one side, bar a few sections of high fencing. It was also en route, sort of, for my intended evening match in Bedfordshire.

Unfortunately, this league can throw up some absolutely farcical scores, this being one of them, although at least there was an excuse of sorts for Aldershot. Facing a fixture backlog, for some reason they decided it would be a good idea to play a ’double header’ today, using just a squad of 16 or 17 players. They played Carshalton Athletic at 11.15, going down 2-5, before having just over an hours rest, before taking on Worthing. The fact they were playing the team second in the league table, followed by the league leaders, just seems ridiculous and gives a poor impression of how things are run at Aldershot.

It was 0-3 after just nineteen minutes, before Aldershot pulled one back on thirty minutes with the goal of the game, an absolute thunderbolt into the top corner from the edge of the box. It was 1-6 by halftime and the goals kept flowing after the break, as Worthing ran in seven more with very little resistance. The Aldershot ’keeper actually pulled off a fair number of saves and couldn’t be blamed for any of the goals. As for Worthing, they actually used three different ’keepers. The original one went off injured, before two different outfield players had a spell between the sticks. They could have played without a ’keeper and would still have won easily.