St Silas vs Burnside

Good news for all St Silas supporters: The game on Saturday 3rd March finished 3-2 to St Silas and the match report is only a day late!!!

The game was played on a dodgy astro turf pitch in Easterhouse, Glasgow. St Silas took an early lead through John Wood. Quickly afterwards Frank Brodie finished superbly after a trade mark Alan Dock cross, giving Silas a second. Much to Burnside's credit they started to come back into the game more and more with good passing and moving from the defence through to the strikers which St Silas couldn't deal with. Their good pressure should have been rewarded when a header crossed the line but the woeful ref didn't give it.

The second half started like the first ended, with St Silas on the back foot to Burnside's good passing play. Slightly against the run of play John escaped from the ref's strange offside decision to slot the third past the goal keeper. Burnside kept the pressure up forcing MOM Derick to pull off an number of fantastic saves! Frank then got himself sent off for two yellow cards which gave Burnside even more chance to test Derick. Towards the end of the game the ref gave a penalty which was rather ludicrous: 3-1. Then a Burnside cross found the head of an attacker: 3-2, which was no less than Burnside deserved for their performance.

Over all it Silas where lucky to go away with all three points, all credit to Burnside. In the last two weeks we have been shown up defensibly (as a team) when playing against teams who can keep the ball well. Though, to steal an over used football saying, "Its the sign of champions when you win when you don't play well"......Next week Silas take on CEC2 in the first round of the Cup!

St Silas vs Dumbarton

Sorry again for not getting a match report on my blog! For those who don't look regularly: St Silas Church has a football team (soccer if your from the US) and we play in the Churches league (link can be found on the left hand tab) and since I play in the team I like to write reports! Sadly it seems they haven't updated the league etc. for this weeks results! So onto the, short, report!

Top of the league St Silas were put under pressure early in the first half with Dumbarton's ability to keep the ball.
The first three goals though where scored by Silas, slightly against the run of play. More surprising was that they where quite "ugly": two long throw in which where flicked on by Ali Morrow for Gordon Comrie to head home. I cannot for life of me remember who scored the 3rd (sorry to that person).

At 3-0 St Silas started to play a little bit better though Dumbartons quick passing and moving gave them a well earned goal towards the end of the half. The number 10 (who started move) was left in space by the centre midfielders near the edge of the box took full advantage and finished brilliantly into the top corner!

As second half progressed St Silas started to play better football and after a lot of huffing and puffing got a forth. Then came my moment of glory: as my shot from about 20 yards rolled towards the keeper he must have taken his eye off the ball and it went through his legs and across the line, 5-1!!!

Athletes....

My weekend, as usual, was one filled with sport and included some athletic people playing!

On Friday night some of the St Silas football team met for dinner and had a chat bout tactics. The food was wonderfully cooked and it was an evening ful-o-banter. Strangely after food the management suggested we went to the pub for a drink! Thankfully this didn't seem to effect our result the next morning when we took on Parkhead: The game finished 6-1! With a slightly depleted side we still won with John Wood and Alan Dock both got two and (if memory serves) Gordon and Ali Morrow getting one each also. Ali also claimed the MOM award which is the least he deserved!

In the afternoon a few of us went to watch the Glasgow Hawks, and more importantly Nick, take on Ayr. They are trialling new rules which are designed to speed the game up. It certainly worked as the game was a lot faster moving! Sadly though it took our lil gang the best part of 70
Do watch to the end! My goodness they are skillful, woah!!!

St Silas vs Hope Hall

5-2 was the final score in this hard fought match. Hope Hall (who are high in the table for a reason) lead twice in the second half before Silas fought through for the win.

The teams met at Scotstoun Leisure Centre on the astro turf pitch. Before the game even began Silas where on their hands and knees (not praying, sadly :P) but picking up shards of glass as one of the floodlights had been smashed and not cleaned up. A striker claimed we should just play on without tidying up, much to the disgust of the right back and right midfield who would be playing through it all! That little comment proved to be the most entertaining part of a first half which was ruined by high winds causing most passes, shots and clearances to go over the fence!!

The second half saw the wind die down and the play improve greatly. Hope Hall went a goal up with a header after a little goalkeeping error. Silas got back on level terms before Hope Hall scored another: a shot from outside the box which caused our goalie some problems. Silas then rallied and with an Ali Morrow goal into the top corner from short range made it all square. John Wood then scored a goal after the keeper didn't catch the ball properly. The goalie (who is very good: saved a good header form me anyway) then kicked John as he ran to celebrate. This left the ref (who had a good game) with no option but show the red card. With Hope Hall down to 10 men (and a new keeper in) Silas then scored two more well worked goals. (Appologiese for the lateness, shortness and "without even goal scorers names"ness of this report)


The Silas defence dealt well with the weather problems and can't be blamed for the two goals we let in. The midfield and attack were not firing on all cylinders but still managed to score 5 (which can only be a good thing). Also the two attackers both got an assist or two which is great also. MOM was given to me (Graham Cuthbert), which was really nice to get. I feel bad though that other player don't get as much credit as they deserve though. For example, I thought Murdo, Alan Dock and Richard Olyott played particularly well on Saturday, but everyone in the team makes a real contribution. Without a team we would never win!!!! Thank God for the gift of sport and football!! :D

OI, referee!

Saturday evening I helped at out by refereeing! It was the under 11s Scottish Crusaders Indoor Football tournament and what a lovely experience it was!! The kids were so pleasant but also had a lot of passion to win. One of the teams was made up of all 8 year olds including a girl who, in her obsession to get the ball, ran into me, knocking me over (much to the hilarity of the parents and other players). A particular highlight was the fact there were no controversial decisions,Thank God! Being "cheated" is the sort of things which can ruin the whole experience for a team and leave parents shouting at the poor ref!

Lenzie Crusaders (as usual) won the tournament. The reason they win is because they have the best team but the reason they win so often is because they have a massive group. So big, in fact, they have to meet a number of different nights! For years the Pollockshields teams ,which I was part of, used to complain about how unfair it was. Now though, as a leader, its just fantastic to see how strong there group is and I pray that our group will grow again and see people meet God. A man called Gordon has run the Lenzie group for many decades and thank God for him and all the work he has done, still does. His service is something which, again, I only noticed when I was a leader.

Only 15 years ago Scottish Crusaders used to have athletics, swimming, badminton and football competitions annually for all the different groups to compete in. It was a very good way of getting children of all ages to get involved and along to Crusader grups. The need to work as a team helps built up friendships and comradery between younger people and also there leaders; relationships which grow over the years. Sadly, as my friend Darren talks about in his last blog post, a few years ago everyone decided that competitiveness, for children, was bad. As a result Crusaders stopped many of there competitions from happening, what a mistake! Thankfully Gordon, I'm told, fought to keep the football tournament and after seeing the children at the weekend enjoy it so much I see how important it was.

Sport is such a good way to get kids interested, fit and having fun. As a society we need to bring back competitiveness in schools and sports. Not to make people feel they are rubbish, but to encourage them to play hard! Everyone winning leaves children with no reason to push themselves because without a reason to do try why should they? After being and seeing children play (especially boys) its important that winning is something which is emphasised as a good thing, not the only thing, but a good thing!

St Silas Vs Trinity Possil

3-2 was the final score in a close game which saw St Silas bounce back against a very strong Trinity Possil. John Wood, Frank Brodie and David Stewart where on the score sheet.

Trinity's number 7 scored a superb goal in the first half where he out positioned me and drilled a shot into the bottom corner. John got one back for Silas before the 7 scored again when he out positioned his marker and volleyed into the bottom corner.

In the second half the game was still even but St Silas seemed to be on the attack more and with some good football, moving the ball from defence to attack, Davy Stewart played the ball past the keeper. The prolific Frank Brodie scored the 3rd and with some strong defending towards the end Silas claim a hard fought win.

M.O.M. was given to me for some reason even though, I felt, it was one of my worst performances this season. We gave the particularly skillful "number 7" their award and after playing him for the university too he is one of the best players I've played against.

Richard Grant got a serious concussion so will have to take at least a month off football.

Snowboarding

As a Christmas present my parents got my sister, Rachel, and I skiiing and snowboarding lessons! So last Wednesday we headed off to Xcape to learn! This is an example of the sort of stuff we where doing doing:



Snowboarding is brilliant! It's such a satifying sport and I can't wait till the next lesson (though my bank account won't like it)! I was amazed at how frictionless the boards where! Now that might sound silly but just go try it and you'll know what I mean!



How many professional snowboarders like the guy above have knee ligament damage?? When I started out you could feel them straining as I slide around. What if your doing a trick and catch an edge in the snow??


NOTE: The video's are not in the wrong order!

Game OVER!!!

Well not really; St Silas' Football match was cancelled due to the bad weather in Glasgow. What a shame because, for me, there is NOTHING BETTER than getting right muddy and having a nice scrappy game. Maybe I'm in the wrong sport?

With that in mind I'm off this afternoon to watch The Glasgow Hawks take on Aberdeen. I'm embarrassed to say that I've only ever been to two other rugby matches before: Scotland at Murrayfield and, the local team, Cambuslang. In both cases "we" where destroyed but I'm sure things will be different as my friend Nick plays for them and I may be joined by Olly and David as well as a few other people from St Silas giving the 16th man support (is that right? there are 15 players in union?). So, yeah, it should be a grand day out!


St Silas have a weekend off next week giving some players a much needed rest! Many of the team are going to Bradford for a Christian Conference which should be interesting! More later