Kestrels 5-1 ARU 2 (Oct 27th)

The sun rose on a relatively windy Wednesday in Cambridge, with the prospect of a local derby against the Tuesday night mash boys ahead for the Kestrels. A bit of pre game drill in the changing room had all the boys in the spirits for what was assumed to be a scrappy game against ARU 2s, and with OFB still ringing in everyone’s ears the team was led to a hearty warm up by honorary PT Ralph. With a strong starting line up, the boys were confident of getting their first win of the season. The first 5 minutes of the game were predictably slow from both teams, with a mini game of football tennis emerging between the sides, but once Kestrels got the ball down it started opening up a bit more. The first goal game from a poor throw from the ARU left back, and some of the worst defending seen on these pitches since Kings’s last college game let to Cyprien being in on goal, and with a cool finish past the keeper the floodgates were open. The second came not long after, with a free kick won by Ola waswhipped in by Edmondson, and after a bit of a scramble Macca got his toe to it and flicked it into the bottom left, past the same helpless ARU keeper who’d held 4 two weeks earlier to the falcs. A cross/shot (we’ll call it cross) from Torres after a blocked effort gave Cyprien his second of the game, and heads were beginning to drop all over the pitch, including the Kestrels CB pairing of Matt², who were nodding off after having nothing to do all game. A brief period of ARU pressure gave them a bit of a more lively ten minutes, but with good defending and sweeping by Sagar at the back, the Kestrels held firm, rallied by the solid CM pairing of Alex and Cass. Cambridge’s fourth came at around the 30 minute mark, after another violation of the ARU right back by Ola led to a Cambridge penalty, which Edmondson confidently (😳) slotted away. A quadruple change by our very own Pep led to a reinvigorated attacking 4, but with little time left on the clock to get into the game they were only able to grab the one extra goal, a tidy little finish by Danny into the corner making it 5, and with no revs to look forward to later on the ARU side were a sorry sight to behold. A confident team talk at half time gave the boys some things to work on, namely how badly we could wind up their social media team post match (@aru_fc), and the boys emerged in high spirits for the second half. A tidy finish by Cyprien finished his hat trick, after which he was subbed by Nick and told that if we ever wanted them to agree to a friendly again we had to stop scoring. This instruction reached the entire team, who promptly obliged, and even allowed them a consolation goal with a slight mix up at the back putting their striker through on goal for his 3rd chanve of the game, surprisingly not skying this one and poking it past Sagar who could do nothing about it. Kestrels nearly had a seventh after a tidy free kick routine led to Edmondson hitting the post, but decent game management and some commandeering runs forward from the two centre half’s allowed Cambridge to see out the game, with some nice bits of trickery by Arun and Ankush pissing ARU off even more. Ola and Marcus were a constant threat down the right in the second half, and Macca and Torres skill and pace led to the even further recession of the ARU right backs hairline, who left the pitch looking twenty years older than when he’d started. All in all, a cracking result from the boys in blue, and a promising sign of the football to come for the rest of the season.

Man of the match has to go to Cyprien for his hat trick, putting him top of the Cambridge friendly league scorers list.