On a difficult pitch, West Midlands U15’s gained a comfortable 3-1 victory over Shropshire.

The overnight chill had left the pitch very firm and the ball was likely to bounce a little unpredictably. So we asked the team to play as much football in the oppositions half as possible, and this they did very well.

After just 3 minutes West Midlands took the lead when a long early ball from Malachi Farquharson (Erd & Salt) released Declan Attenbarrow (KN & S B’ham) who scored at the second attempt.

West Midlands continued to be on top but had to wait until 30 minutes fro their next real chance created by Attenbarrow himself; he turned superbly past his marker and ran clear only to see his shot hit the post.

On 38 minutes West Midlands got their second when Stephen O’Sullivan (Coventry) won the ball superbly and passed the ball through to Attenbarrow again who drove the ball in at the near post, to score his own and West Midlands second goal.

HT 2-0

Three minutes into the second half, following a corner, team captain Tom Milnes (Solihull) charged down an attempted Shropshire clearance, turned and shot into the far corner of the goal.

A few minutes later an Aaden Snaith (Wolverhampton) long throw in bounced for Josh Pitt (Wolverhampton) to attempt an overhead kick but being a little too close to goal it was well saved.

Shropshire scored a consolation goal in one of their few attacks midway through the second half when Roy Chatterjee took control of hesitancy in the West Midlands defence and shot in from 15 yards to complete the scoring.