Saturday 17th September saw us partake in our first league fixture of the 2016-2017 season against FC Planet, the game ending in a humbling 4-1 defeat to the reigning champions.
First 10/15 minutes saw GAS come flying out of the blocks, spirits clearly high and tales wagging. Gerd hitting the woodwork and going close with 2-3 chances. However, not long after, Planet took the league through Planet’s notorious goal scorer, Kevin Gibbons. The GK starting his charge to clear the threaded through ball unexpectedly hesitated expecting the flag to be raised though no such luck, this allowing space for Kevin to get in between the defender and keeper poking home. 1-0. Against the run of play. 10 minutes later their striker found himself in acres of space on the right wing allowing the cross to come in for a relatively easy tap in. 2-0. The rest of the half was dominated by Planet who kept and moved the ball around well, enjoying their somewhat harsh advantage.
Second half saw GAS once again come out of the blocks flying – clearly the Manager’s team talk worked. Vaneck sliding home from 12 yards after the ball was spilt by the Planet keeper. 2-1, game on. 5 minutes later Vaneck had an effort cleared off the line after skipping around the keeper. Doing the hard bit, his effort was well cleared by their defender. It seems the game is ours for the taking. Suddenly after a terrible mix up in our defence Kevin found himself clean through, not needing to be asked twice, sliding home to make it 3-1. A cruel and unfair goal it seemed at the time. 10 minutes from time saw Planet add a fourth which killed the game.
Some valuable lessons to be learned though plenty of positives to take away from the game. We all recognize we must improve to compete against the newly promoted PTT Academy which is our next game on the 1st of October.