AFC Sudbury Reserves v Great Yarmouth Town. Saturday 19th November 2022. Report by Martin Baxter.
Yarmouth made the long journey to the Suffolk/Essex border to face AFC Sudbury Reserves at the excellent MEL group stadium.
If ever a non-league football club were a perfect blue print on how to be run then Sudbury are that club, as from top to bottom they do everything in the right way and this looked to be another very stiff challenge for this young Bloaters side.
Yarmouth made 3 changes from their mid-week cup win with Trenery, Soares and Barnden all making starts and the bench included three 16 year old players, as they were missing 9 first team regulars due to injuries and players being unavailable.
The most significant area missing is up front with 3 strikers unavailable and Barnden started out of position in the number 9 shirt in a perfect square peg in a round hole scenario.
The game started with the home side passing the ball around and keeping possession really well and they looked the sharper outfit, however in them 8th minute following a free kick on the left from Halliday, Barnden slotted home only for the linesman to put up his flag for off-side. This was as good as it got for Yarmouth as Sudbury then started to dominate the midfield areas and were pressing their opponents at every opportunity.
In the 22nd minute White struck a volley which Lane in the Yarmouth goal was equal to and a minute later a free kick from Pearce from fully 25 yards out just went wide of the left hand post.
In reply Duffield put in cross from the left which went right across the goalmouth without anyone in a Bloaters shirt being able to get on the end of, and on 35 minutes Pearce again had another effort for the home side with a volley from a corner that just went over the bar. However in the 40th minute the first goal finally arrived when White hit a perfect volley from 20 yards that went sailing past Lane and into the net.
Yarmouth then sealed their own fate right on half-time when following a corner Carroll rose unchallenged to power a header into the goal to put his side 2-0 up and firmly in control of this match.
Half time: AFC Sudbury Reserves 2 Great Yarmouth Town 0.
The second half started with the home side now totally dominant as that 2nd goal right on half time gave them the breathing space to now express themselves and they were playing some really good football which Yarmouth had no real answers too.
The Bloaters players were becoming increasingly frustrated and in the 55th minute Soares was sinned binned for dissent and this put his side down to 10 men for the next 10 minutes and 1 minute later Pearce hit a curler from a corner that just went wide and 5 minutes later Carroll came even closer when his shot from close range missed by a whisker and a third goal was surely only a matter of time, however in the 70th minute against the run of play Trenery came close to pulling a goal back for the Bloaters when his close range strike at the near post was blocked by the Sudbury keeper Dunne.
However less than 2 minutes later the third goal finally arrived when man of the match Pearce slotted home from 15 yards to give Sudbury a fully deserved 3-0 lead and at this point Yarmouth then made the changes to give their young subs some important game time experience.
In the last 10 minutes Lane made a couple of decent saves to stop it becoming a rout, however if Yarmouth are going to pick up more points away from home they are going to need to have more of their senior players back fit and travelling on that mini-bus once again.
Full Time: AFC Sudbury Reserves. 3 Great Yarmouth Town 0.
GYTFC Line up: Lane, Halliday, Duffield, Vincent, Phillpott, Perry, Trenery, Soares, Barnden, Fenn, Lonergan. Subs: Rix, Woodhouse, Smith, Rigby.
Man of the Match: Liam Pearce. (Sudbury)
