The game between Ross U17 Colts and Ewyas Harold at the Sports Centre on Wednesday, September 14th, was definitely a game of two halves. Ewyas Harold had the better of the exchanges in the first half, and the Colts’ misplaced passing and poor marking more than helped their opponents race into a two goal lead.

The Colts pulled a goal back, through Erny, and were starting to play better football.

Unfortunately Harold scored another to make it 3-1 at half time.

Manager Tony’s team talk at half time was a bit spicy. He told the team they needed to sort out the very basics of football: marking and passing. “Get these right and you will get back into the game,” he said.

They all took his words on board and came out playing much better football in the second half.

They managed to get three goals back making the score 3-3, with goals from Jack Clark and Lewis Fletcher. They then started to push for the winner, but yet again Harold scored.

To the Colt’s credit, this didn’t affect them, they kept pushing and got their reward with Jack Clark scoring his second of the match. This came to the relief of the managers and supporters, and the game finished 4-4, which was a very fair result, and one which the lads totally deserved.

The One Stop man of the match was Harry Cronshaw, he didn’t put a foot wrong.

The team is very lucky that it has a long-standing sponsor, The Saracens Head Inn, Symonds Yat East. This is the eighth year they have supported this group of players and the team is very grateful for this.

Their other sponsor is the One Stop Shop in Ross-on-Wye. They have provided the team with some lovely Nike hoodies emblazoned with the One Stop logo on the back. They were presented with these after the match by the store manager, Jackie.

One Stop’s awards are funded by their recycling project where they work closely with the Salvation Army, who collect clothing and shoes from local recycling banks.

Jackie said that it is very rewarding to see local customers supporting this scheme and as a consequence they have been able to invest money into local organisations such as Ross Juniors Football Club.