Ascot United Seniors v Windlesham Veterans

Report

2 August 2024

Ascot United Vets’ 2s (i) 3-2 Windlesham Vets

Goalscorers; Carl Collins (2) and Stuart Flurry

 

Ascot United Vets’ 2s (ii) 4-1 Holyport Vets

Golascorers; Zak Dimitrovski (2), Adam Fennell and Leon Palmer-Wilson

 

The twos started their pre-season campaign in earnest on 2 August, putting out two completely different sides against Windlesham and then Holyport. The idea was simple; give everyone in and around the 2nd XI – and that squad is now a fair old size – 40 minutes on the pitch to get folks back into the swing of things.

 

Windlesham came into the encounter with a decent record against Ascot’s second string, winning the same encounter between the sides 12 months ago and also beating a broadly similar Ascot Supervets’ team 5-1 back in September.

 

This time out, things went a little differently. Windlesham had a fair amount of the ball early on, but it was Ascot who looked the more likely to open the scoring. And, sure enough, that’s the way it panned out.

 

Windlesham lost possession in the middle of the park and the ball was neatly played over the top for Carl Collins to run on to. The ball bounced once before Collins smashed it in from outside the area. A decidedly decent strike.

 

With Abbas Hussain working well with Micky Parker down the left and Dave Porter bossing the middle of the park like a maturer version of Rhodri, Ascot continued to threaten. Indeed, Carl Collins soon scored his second of the night, linking up nicely with Dave Thompson before slotting home impressively.

 

Stu Flurry then got involved with the goal-scoring fun, coming in from the right to cooly finish another well-worked move.

 

3-0 up and on cruise-control…..well, yep, but Windlesham, to their credit, did come back and put the hosts under a bit of pressure in the last ten minutes. Ascot sat a bit deeper, Windlesham pressed and Windlesham did indeed manage to grab a couple of late goals. 3-2 it nonetheless ended, with both sets of players departing to grab a pint and watch the rest of the footballing entertainment on offer.

 

The second of the AUFC 2nd XIs was completely different to that which turned out against Windlesham. Debutant Steve Hills, Dwaine Bryan and Jon Keough formed a troika at the back, Adam Abusweder and Steve Dando were in the speedster roles on the flanks. Leon Palmer-Wilson and Stu Birkett were in the middle, leaving Adam Fennell, Phil White and Zak Dimitrovski to provide the creative input.

 

Holyport came into the game off the back of 30 minutes against the Ascot United 1s. They were subsequently up-to-speed and raring to go.

 

That, however, didn’t worry Ascot too much. The back three were confident on the ball, whilst Palmer-Wilson and Birkett did an excellent job of feeding those in front of them. That left Adam Fennell in particular to cause carnage.

 

It was indeed Fennell who created the first goal, dancing round the ‘keeper before being felled. Penalty, and Zak Dimitrovski made no mistake……the big question was quite how the Macedonian managed to wrestle the ball away from Leon Palmer-Wilson. An issue to be discussed on the next edition of the Ascot United podcast no doubt…..

 

Holyport responded and soon drew level, but Ascot – much to their credit – quickly re-took the lead. Stu Birket broke impressively down the left before feeding the ball across to Palmer-Wilson. LPW made no mistake.

 

2-1 then became 3-1 when Adam Fennell got the goal that his ingenuity deserved, before Steve Dando and Fennell helped free Zak Dimitrovski to neatly chip the ‘keeper and make it 4-1. Job done.

 

“If Carlsberg made pre-season games, then they would look like this” mused club legend Doug Page to the world’s press afterwards. “Mind you, organising three kits, three sets of balls, and floodlights that seemed at times to have a life of their own is a fair old task to master. If you can master that, then next stop is olving the Middle East crisis…..”