Hard-fought point for U13Cs against KCS
By Arun Crowe
After almost two months without a match, Hampton’s U13C team travelled to New Malden to play another strong footballing school in King’s College School (KCS) Wimbledon.
The game got off to a scrappy start as neither team were able to create many chances or have too much of the possession. Despite this, it wasn’t long before the first chance of the game presented itself to the hosts, however it was saved well by Ed Barkus. The C team keeper produced a fine string of saves in the minutes that followed, however he could do nothing about the stroke of brilliance which the KCS striker produced to put his team into the lead. After receiving the ball on the halfway line, he chipped the ball up and over Barkus into the top corner. Yet, Hampton were not going to give up and got their heads back up as soon as the game kicked off again.
Their pressure was at last rewarded when a stray back pass fell to the feet of Neel Mohindra, but unfortunately the striker’s shot was saved by the keeper. Hampton continued to press and dominate as the end of the first half approached, but to no avail as the half ended 1-0 to KCS.
As the ball was passed into play once more, Hampton had switched around a few positions with Neel Mohindra coming off and Lander Kauenhoven-Wrenn moving up to striker to replace him. It was the latter who made an instant impact, scoring a brilliantly worked goal which split apart the helpless defence. After winning a free kick next to Hampton’s penalty box, Maxwell Gladding played it quickly into Max Vynnytskyy who found Kauenhoven-Wrenn with a brilliantly threaded through-ball. The striker used his pace to full effect as he burst away from the KCS centre-back to finish clinically into the bottom corner.
For the last twenty minutes, however, Hampton were on the back foot as their opponents saw a goal disallowed and chances go to waste due to continued pressure from the Hampton defence and more heroics from Barkus in goal.
The game eventually ended 1-1, with both teams coming away from the match with a hard-fought point.
