SDFL Div 4 Preston South End V Torbay Police 11th Oct 2014

[Dave]

South Devon Football League Division 4

Final Score Preston South End 1 Torbay Police 3

Preston South End V Torbay Police 11th Oct 2014

Venue Whiterock 1 Kick-Off 2.30pm

I decided to cover another game from the SDFL today and thought it would be good to see how good the standard was down in division four. I said last season that in my opinion the standard of the football played in the SDFL had improved over the years. Today that was confirmed for me as I watched a game full of good passing moves and with the ball played mainly on the deck.

I may be wrong as I do not watch that many games in the SDFL, but it seems to me there are far less older players playing in the league than there used to be. If that is the case it might go some way to explaining why some teams seem short of players. Preston started this match with just ten players on the pitch, but twenty minutes into the game another player turned up to give them a complete team.


Is the Torbay Police team made up of all police men? If so they are getting to look even younger these days and one or two shorter. A police officer turned up at the match during the second half complete with a taser, just for s second I thought he had been sent to the ground as the word had gone out I was there .

I will use what names I have on the team sheet, but can’t be sure I will use the correct names as some players were wearing shirts with numbers on them that were not the team sheet I took a picture of.

Torbay Police really should have won this game by at least six or seven goals, they created so many good chances with players so often with only the keeper to beat and wasted most of them. They did take a very early lead in the game but the goal was gifted to them by a bad error by M.James Dockrey, the ball had been played back to him and he was unsure what to do with it and had it robbed off him by Bobby Chancellor, who ran into the box and fired a right foot across the keeper into the left hand side of the goal.

Torbay Police were unable to add any more goals in the first half due to some poor finishing and good blocking saves made by Gary Munday in goal for Preston. As the first half wore on Preston came so close to equalizing and their number twenty hit a fine shot from the edge of the area that was well saved by Corey Bird. From the resulting corner a shot hit the crossbar and went behind for a goal kick. Preston’s player wearing the number 21 shirt then hit a great shot from 20 yards out that only just cleared the crossbar.


Just before the halftime whistle Torbay’s Police number 16 should have sent his side in at the break two goals up. He was played into the Preston box and only had the keeper to beat who did ever so well to make a fine blocking save.


Torbay Police started the second half as they started the first one well on top and had so many more chances to add to their lead. They had to wait for three quarters of the half to pass by before they did get their second goal. It came about after a fine run into the Preston box by their number 16 who hit a good low shot across the keeper into the far right hand corner of the goal.

Preston kept working hard but failed to create many good goal scoring opportunities but did pull a goal back due to a very poor error by Corey Bird the Torbay Police keeper. A long hopeful ball was played from the halfway line by a Preston player but there was no Preston player in a forward position close enough to get on the end of it. The keeper came out and misjudged the fight of the ball and had to stand and watch as the ball bounced over him and into the empty goal.

Torbay police soon afterwards made the game safe after another good run and shot by their number 16 again, in fact it was almost a carbon copy of the first goal he scored I The police second goal)

After that early mistake by M.James Dockrey, he went on to have a very good game for Preston and was my man of the match.

A good game of football that had me laughing when I saw a clear off side as the Torbay Police went on an attack and saw no flag go up. Then I saw why as the ref ran over to the linesman who was chatting away on his mobile phone lol.