A tough battle ends in defeat to Grange Woodbine

We should have known that this was not going to be our lucky day when our captain Cathal lost the toss and we ended up playing into a very strong wind in first half.

The match was very open because the pitch was very wide and the gusting wind made the bounce of the ball very unpredictable. It was Grange Woodbine who opened the scoring with an early goal which left our goalkeeper for the day Omar with no chance.

Our luck began to get worse when John, who was having a great game in the forwards had to go off injured with a bad cut on his knee. He only spent a short time on the pitch, but it was enough to earn him our man-of-the-match title for the day.

After John went off, Castleknock did their best to get back into the game. One of their many shots was saved by Grange Woodbine and the ball bounced at Robert's feet. Robert's shot went over the line before the Grange Woodbine tried to scoop it out. Although the goal was already scored Zhudi was on hand to put it into the back of the net, just in case the referee didn't see the goal. This made the teams level 1-1 at half time.

We thought we would be in a strong position for the second half because we were now playing with the wind. However, Grange Woodbine had other ideas and one of their shots took a funny bounce due to the gusting wind and the ball curved around Omar to give them the lead 2-1. Shortly afterwards Omar hurt his ankle and had to go off injured, so it was just as well we had a full complement of subs ready.

Despite our best efforts we were not able to score an equalizer before the referee blew the final whistle after what seemed like less than 30 minutes. However the weather was beginning to turn nasty so everyone was more than happy to head for home.