United Counties League - Premier Division

Raunds Town 2 Yaxley 3

Saturday, 05 January 2008

The Cuckoos secured 3 points in their first fixture of the new year at Kiln Park. Dane Ridgway's 36th minute goal had the Shopmates in front at the break but it was Cuckoos' top scorer Mark Paul who levelled ten minutes after the restart and Hamish Curtis gave Yaxley the lead after 63 minutes.

Despite the Cuckoos enjoying most of the play in the second half, Raund's Jamie Russell squared the match only minutes after Curtis's goal but a penetrating run into the penalty area by Ian Edge was ended with a clattering tackle and Ricky Hailstone stepping up to calmly convert the penalty in the 88th minute.

Manager Gary Clispton was delighted with the team performance, particularly coming back from being 1-0 down at the half-way mark. He was also particularly pleased with the weekends other results for the club.

"This weekend has been a great one for the club and a great start to the new year with the first team winning at Raunds in the League 3-2 and producing a great team performance in the second half, the Under 18's winning 7-1 in the Hunts Cup Quarter Final, but for me as 1st Team Manager the most impressive win of the weekend is from our Reserve Team.

As a Management Team we made a commitment at the start of the season to play a really young side in the Reserves, and to give them the experience in playing Senior football with the intention to nurture the players who we believe have the potential to play in the 1st team within the next 3 years.

The Reserves won 4-1 against Woodford United (who's first team play in the next pyramid level up) and produced a fantastic performance, but the highlight for me was that we had 12 players from the squad of 14 who were under 20 years of age. Sam Makansi (17) scored two and Luke McDowell was inspirational who is only 16 years of age. Great credit goes to Seb Hayes the manager who is believing in these boys and who is delivering to the club our intentions on what I believe is the way forward for a club like ourselves."

Raunds: Phil Turner, James Willmott, Jamie Russell, Scott Manning, Marcus Wharton, Ricky Chambers, Dane Ridgway, Josh Davis, Danny Frid, Matt Woods (Ben Allington), Matt Peacock (Jake Cottage)

Yaxley: John Feetham, Ben Russell, Hamish Curtis, Anthony Thomas, Matt Parrott, Teddy Rimmell, Danny Steward, Ian Edge, Mark Paul, Ricky Hailstone, Elio Salerno (Dan Fountain).

The Cuckoos have no mid-week fixtures and host Northampton Spencer on Saturday 12th January - 3pm Kick-off

2007-08

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