13th July 2014 – Willen World Cup:
Whirlwinds were handed a tough a group, certainly containing the stronger teams of the two groups. With an hour and half wait, we finally started with a goalless draw, thoroughly dominating game but failing to convert our chances, defence and ‘keeper were rarely, if at all troubled. This theme continued for the 5 games with just a single win, 2 draws and 2 one-nil losses. We could have easily been looking at 6 straight wins but our usually lethal strike force, just weren’t firing today.
Penultimate game was against Willen Warriors, hosts, and one of the favourites to lift a trophy, after again dominating the early exchanges and looking really comfortable, Whirlwinds fell behind to really well worked Willen goal, this seemed to finally galvanise the forward line, and whirlwinds sprang in to life and took Willen apart with 2 fantastic strikes and could have won by a couple more. Final group game saw a comfortable 3-1 win. Somehow much to the amazement of all we managed to finish 5th in the group, when really, our performances with better finishing would have seen us top of the group. So it was on to defend the Plate :
Quarter final saw as comfortable 1-0 win against another Willen side. Semi Final, again cruised through in 2nd gear against MK City Leopards – despite one hairy moment of a hoofed clearance which dipped at the last minute and our ‘keeper pulled of a fine save. On to the final …
Whirlwinds faced a traditionally strong Olney Town Tigers side in the final, the game started with both teams showing attacking intent, gradually Whirlwinds started to get more control and eventually a fine strike put us ahead. Olney responded and attacked and attacked with the Whirlwinds looking dangerous on the counter, eventually Olney equalised through their talented left side midfielder who curled a shot in to the right top corner of the goal, our ‘keeper got a finger tip on it, but just not enough to keep it out. Whirlwinds responded well pulverizing Olney with attacks and soon another fine strike saw us take a 2-1 lead, 5 minutes to go, Whirlwinds locked the midfield and defence, and controlled the game to see us lift the plate again !
Scorers – Ajiri -8, Jack M – 4, Sam.A -1, Clean Sheets -5
A fine end to what has been an exciting and successful season – well done boys !
The Winning Team
