Waltham Forest 2 Felixstowe 4

Division One

FOLLOWING from last week’s victory against St Ives, Felixstowe travelled to Waltham Forest looking to build their momentum and clock up another three points.

Felixstowe started the game slowly, struggling to adapt to a slow and sticky pitch. Waltham Forest capitalised on this by opening the scoring early on. A good cross into the ‘D’ was poorly cleared, and was lashed into the net by the Waltham Forest attacker.

This acted as a wake up call to Felixstowe, who started to play more expansive passing hockey and began to assert more pressure on the Forest defence. This resulted in several short corners, the first of which was saved well by the Waltham Forest keeper much to the displeasure of the defender on the line, who took a ball in the face off the keepers glove.

Minutes later the score was level. Good work from Marley Jones down the right resulted in another short corner, which was drag flicked into the goal by Alex Woodhouse, with the aide of a small deflection.

Felixstowe continued to dominate play after this, and before long found themselves leading the match. Captain Jack Entwistle took the ball off a Waltham Forest defender, before squaring the ball to Woodhouse at the top of the area who took one touch before firing an unstoppable shot past the keeper.

All was looking good for the Seasiders, however shortly before half time Waltham Forest equalised. A short corner was well defended by Felixstowe, but not cleared effectively enough. A cross was quickly fired back into the ‘D’ where a Forest player was waiting at the back post to sweep the ball past a helpless Fothergill in goal.

Felixstowe began the second half brightly, and caused the Waltham defence problems. Paul Farthing and Entwistle in attack we’re becoming a real handful, whilst the defence stood firm whenever tested. Before long Felixstowe regained the lead from a slick short corner that was expertly deflected into the goal by Entwistle.

The remainder of the game was a scrappy affair, with some heavy challenges being made by both sides. A Waltham Forest midfielder was the first to receive a yellow card for an aggressive tackle, which gave Felixstowe more room on the pitch to work with.

A breakaway from defence found David Goode on the right, who fired a perfect cross-field pass to the open Paul Farthing in attack. He controlled the ball well, before using great skill to take the ball round the keeper. His run was halted however as his legs were taken out by the fully committed goalkeeper, resulting in a penalty flick, and a severely winded striker. Woodhouse stepped up to fire the ball into the net to complete his hat-trick and put the game beyond Waltham Forest.

Felixstowe sat back for the rest of the game, but made things difficult for themselves as both Walker brothers we’re yellow carded in quick succession, leaving 9 men to see out the remainder of the game and seal the three points.

Next week Felixstowe will look to carry on their good form, as they entertain local rivals Ipswich at Orwell High School.