Full Time Saffron Walden Town Under 18s 1 Ely City Under 18s 3

This was an early exchange between two unbeaten sides this season so far and The Robins started the match with an unchanged side to the one that started at Dereham Town last week.

On a bumpy ,hard, slopping pitch it was the home side who started the strongest with a useful long direct kick from their keeper getting the ball into the final third early while they worked hard to win the second ball. Ely started slowly with no real tempo in their game either with or without the ball.

In the 8th Walden took the lead when a corner was not properly cleared and in the scramble the ball was fired home to the put The Bloods 1-0 up. This seemed to slightly wake up the away side and they started to gradually get into the game, but kept handing over possession to easily with ambitious long balls rather than going short and playing their football that they can at times.

Ely drew level in the most fortunate of circumstances in the 22nd minute when full back Carson Silvain drove from the half way line and cut in side beating two defenders before shooting. The Walden keeper seemed to be fairly happy that the ball was going wide, but to his horror he had got his angles all wrong and the ball found its way into the corner of the net.

The rest of the half seemed to adopt the same kind of pattern as earlier until the 43rd minute when George Rayner was judged by the referee to be held in the box by a defender and somewhat soft penalty was awarded. George stepped up and hammered the ball past the helpless keeper

The second half started with Saffron Walden getting the ball down and playing at a good tempo without looking really dangerous in terms of goal scoring opportunities . The young Robins seemed happy to sit in and catch them on the break and this happened in the 61st minute when good pressing by Harry Walker found Sean Francis-Calvey in the box and he bundled the ball in

The game started to open up and Jake Alsop in the Robins goal made a couple of great saves to keep his sides lead at two goals. Ely did have a couple of shouts when the ball could or could not have crossed the line, but could have wrapped up the game completely in the 86th minute when Luke Mansfield ran clear of the last defender and his shot was well saved by the legs of the advancing keeper

Ely managed to see the game out and although fortunate to win the game by the scoreline that they did and as Captain Joe Brannan said afterwards 'A win is a win'