24/07/2025
BSB Harchester 3-4 Pilgrim Athletic FC
Match report
An inspired, dominant, hard working and somewhat surprising first performance from the whole squad in the Pilgrims debut match as a club. After what can only be described as a p**s poor 1995 djm team warm up, expectations weren’t what you would call sky high. The 90 minutes that followed I think has probably raised those expectations tenfold for everyone involved.
A super quick start straight from kick off saw us put Harchester on the back foot and keep them there for the first 15 minutes under intense pressure, a mixture of accurate diagonal balls wide and smart passing moves built from back to front quickly made Harchester realise we weren’t messing around and they knew they were in for a game. We absolutely peppered their goal and could easily of been 4 or 5 goals to the good with multiple efforts flying in on goal from Alfie, Lewis and Jack. With only the Harchester keepers unbelievable saves keeping them in the game. Against the run of play Harchester took the lead from a very dubious free kick that took a massive deflection off our man Souey and looped over Olly into the top corner of the net. This did not dampen our spirits and again we came flying out the traps to pile the pressure on the Harchester back line winning corner after corner beautifully delivered by Alfie and Richie and were very unlucky not to convert any of these chances. A moment of Magic from the wizard young Tasker, jinxing past defenders for fun saw him finally slot one home to bring us level. Our back 4 remained solid throughout easily dealing with long ball after long ball with Richie, Deano, Souey and Mash not losing a single battle. Olly swept up really well and constantly communicated with his back line making it a real strong unit. With only 1 save to make from open play, a nice quiet start after 3 years out with injury. Special mention to Martin Graham who was forced into playing far more minutes than he expected after Souey landed awkwardly in a divot jarring his knee and ankle which proved to be the end of his night.
Our midfield 3 of Thomo, Lukey and Jack were totally dominant throughout the whole 90, Thomo as disciplined as ever, relentless in his work and breaking play up for fun to turnover possession, Lukey didn’t miss a header all night, aerially winning every ball even when he had no right to get there and playing dangerous balls to the front line, Jack with powerful, driving runs, carrying the ball so well and breaking through the lines to create multiple chances.
Alfie did what Alfie does, going past players like they weren’t even there, unbelievable footwork and wizardry. Lewis led the line like a prime Luis Suarez, incredible centre of gravity and so strong on the ball, putting the back line of Harchester under immense pressure with his pressing and was so unlucky not to cap his night off with a goal. Harley’s first rodeo into men’s football and it was a baptism of fire as he was on the receiving end of multiple heavy challenges from the opposition but he didn’t once shy away.
Liam had a real impact from the bench, playing in multiple positions and grabbing a great debut goal to put us 1-2 in front at half time.
The second half continued much in the same way, the tired legs I was expecting after 10 minutes never seemed to come and we continued to create chances, Mase was introduced at half time and oozed class using the ball so well with clever intricate passing and you could see he was levels above our opposition. It was all going so well. I can’t remember if Alfie put us 1-3 up first or if it went to 2-2 first when the ref gave a penalty against Deano Van Dijk that in our opinion was never a penalty. Either way when we struggled to defend a long throw in and the Harchester forward had a free header from 6 yards out we found ourselves at 3-3 with about 15 minutes to go. Lukey Ashford was also sin binned after the award of the penalty for sarcastically applauding the referee and telling him what a great call it was. With about 10 minutes to go and some clever play down the right hand side Jack found himself through on goal to slot a neat finish into the far corner to regain us the lead 3-4. Harchester applied more pressure in the closing minutes of the game the chance came to draw level after a collision in our box with seconds left on the clock, a second penalty to Harchester. The heroics that followed were out of this world, Olly proving that the fact he sh*ts in other people’s gardens isn’t the only reason he’s called the cat, an unbelievable penalty save down low to his right, the Harchester taker bearing down on goal looked certain to score the rebound but no, not with Olly in net as he pulled off a worldy second save and somehow managed to smother the ball and keep it hold. With that the ref blew the final whistle and the Pilgrims were victorious. Absolute scenes 💚
