BRINKLOW FC DEFENDER CRAIG BURRIN WRITES REALLY WELL ABOUT HIS TEAM'S 1-5 DEFEAT TO PEUGEOT...

CRAIG BURRIN: wishing he was still there...

"Finally the season is upon us.


The moment we've all been training and working towards....


The new kit was issued, the pictures were taken.... 

It was downhill from there...

So our opening game was to be played at home against newly promoted Peugeot.
Surely after playing mainly semi-pro sides during pre-season, there was only going to be one result here....

We started the game with a slight change in personnel, the biggest swap was forced in goal with pacey winger Nathan Stoute being put between the sticks as Daniel Mallinson (aka the Angry kid) was suspended after playing in a Sunday game against The Dog & Duck last season and our other keeper Pascal was forced to work.

We won the toss and elected to stay at our end; little did I know that was going to be the only thing we won on the day! 

Peugeot kicked the game off and went straight on the attack. They played the ball in behind our Brinklow defence at nearly every opportunity. We couldn't get into the game at all. The surrounding hedges were having more of the ball than Brinklow's forwards. 

After about 20mins, I gifted Peugeot's winger the ball after being tripped over by a four-leaf clover! The winger ran on and played a cross-field ball in behind the Brinklow defence before their forward put it away.

After the restart, Scott Lindley got taken off with an injury and was replaced by Tom Ford. Brinklow's Jordan Haywards header back across goal was handled by Peugeot's centre-back. Connor Tallett missed the resulting penalty. 
This turned out to be the changing point in the game.

After the half-time oranges, Peugeot went on to score another two goals. The third goal was a header saved by a young Will Smith lookalike (Stoute) but then bundled in on the line. The goal was met with celebrations which wouldn't have been out of place at a cup final, but Peugeot wouldn't have expected this result either.

Brinklow's young Morgan Pulford who came on as sub, got a goal back from the penalty-spot with an unstoppable strike, making it 3-1. It looked like Peugeot would implode after Brinklow's goal but Macca Richards received a 2nd yellow for thinking he was in a Bruce Lee film after kicking out at Peugeot's forward and they then proceeded to get yet another goal. 


Their last goal came from a debatable free-kick just outside the box which was expertly tucked away, making the final scoreline a depressing 5-1. Peugeot deserved all three points on the day but I believe we have much more quality which will hopefully show in the table come the end of the season. 

Nobody at Brinklow expected that result!


It was certainly a day to forget. We will use this as a learning curve. We can only put things right on the pitch.  As our Gaffa has said: things can only get better!" 

CRAIG BURRIN, BRINKLOW FC CENTRAL DEFENDER & DRY WIT...