Useful friendly at the college
A very young United Youth team travelled to Morecambe for a friendly fixture this week and came out on top by the odd goal in a high scoring affair.Youth boss Eric Kinder said: "We've had a really good start to the season and that has made it difficult to justify making too many changes.
"That means that a few of our first years have lost valuable game time and that's something under the new EPPP [Elite Player Performance Plan] rules we have to address.
"We'll probably organise more of this type of game during midweek to make sure that our younger players are getting out onto the pitch.
"We went to Morecambe and played their college team which is mainly made up of first years. The way they do it down there means that their Saturday side is almost all second year lads, and the group we played in this game will move on to become that next season.
"Declan Watson has joined them and it was good to see him again. He was with us for a short while but he found it very difficult to settle. We agreed to let him him go and he signed up with Morecambe and, to be fair to the lad, he scored an absolutely outstanding goal. He went past four or five players and finished it off nicely, and he's a lad who has got a lot of talent. Hopefully he'll settle with them and go on to make a decent career at whatever level he tries to play the game at.
"We played the game on astroturf because the weather in the north west recently has been terrible. They have a wonderful surface at Morecambe College, one of the brand new 4G versions, and they gave us a really good workout.
"We had two young lads with us and they enjoyed themselves. Matt Douglas is an U15 centre half and he handled himself really well. Connor Hammill has been with us before from our U16 team and I was delighted with him. We have a pre-contract agreement to bring him into our youth team next season and he looks very tidy in everything he does.
"Lewis Brass got his first 90 minutes in goals and he did really well. We may have conceded three goals but I don't remember him being at fault for any of them. Jake Chisholm and Evan McEvoy got a full game as well and they both did really well.
"There was a bit of controversy for the third goal because there was only one person on the pitch who thought it had crossed the line. Even the linesman kept his flag down, but the referee decided it had gone in even though he was stood on the half way line at the time.
"We started well and went in front thanks to a goal from Pat Brough. He came inside off the touchline and chipped it over the keeper as he went to ground and it was a nice little goal. Danny Dixon got the second when he cut inside and drilled the ball into the back of the net.
"Danny Dixon will also get the credit for the third goal but that was a howler from the keeper. It was going wide but he dived at it anyway and it ricocheted off the underside of his arm and into the net.
"We looked comfortable at 3-0 but they pulled a couple of goals back and it was a relief for us when Greg Peel got another to give us a cushion again. Then, like I say, there was that controversy to make it an interesting ending to the game.
"It's one where the result didn't really matter but it was good to see that the lads wanted to win. We agreed with Morecambe that we could play one over-age player and that meant we could use Josh Todd for 60 minutes. That will have done him the world of good."
United - Brass, McEvoy, Douglas, Chisholm, Minor (Todd 30), Hammill, Dixon, Lynch, Brough (Minor 60), Clarey, Peel.
