1st friendly against Goole Town FC on the most perfect playing field at the Keepmoat stadium saw Armthorpe take a well deserved lead through Liam Radford. Although at times the game seemed to be quite hurried the passing ability by Armthorpe showed any spectator that we can be a very entertaining footballing side. Armthorpe, after a number of second half changes conceded an early second half goal but more than equalled the superior unibond league side. In all a good workout with a lot of positives to work from and to take to our next encounter against last seasons league runner ups and newly promoted side Sheffield Club.

SHEFFIELD F.C REPORT

The game against Sheffield Club was a great encounter after going down to a 20th minute goal mouth shamble, the Armthorpe boys showed great character and determination to pull back the
equaliser from the penalty spot taken and scored by the inform Liam Radford who now takes his tally to two goals in two games.
Fraz (keeper)was outstanding. Armthorpe looked the fitter side towards the latter part of the game and were very unfortunate not to take the lead and indeed win the game with great opportunities created by Luke Townsend hitting the crossbar with some very clever play and Henry Sibenge hitting wide of goal. The game finished all square at 1-1 and the boys were buzzing!! Should have won!!

DONCASTER ROVERS YOUTH

This particular game gave the manager the opportunityto look at a 1st half side consisting mainly of this seasons U19's trialists and the 2nd year U19's. A very naive side with the exception of trialist Nathan Would X Grimsby YT player, showed his previous league pedigree along side new local boy Chris Brown who looks quite a promising player for the future playing a central midfield role but also looked very comfortable at right back.The Rovers were deservedly three goals up by the 1st half. A second half resurgence consisting mainly of regular and more experienced 1st team players reduced the deficit to one goal. Goals by Daz
Erskine and Bruno Holden made what could have been a very embarrassing scoreline if it were not for the changes at half time more respectable. In the end the game finished 2-3.

STOCKSBRIDGE

This particular game started with great enthusiasm for the Welfare boys,but lacked, in my honest opinion, discipline in the way that we so cheaply gave the possession of the ball away. The game after 20 minutes became more disciplined with Liam Radford proving to us all what he can do best when given the ball to his feet. He tenaciously monouvred the ball twisting and turning, beating two defenders from the L/Hnd side of play, coming onto his right foot,then cleverly unleashing a well struck ball into the keepers top right hand corner to give us the one goal lead that we deserved.Henry Sibenge got the second goal in the 85th minute when he moved from left back into a more attacking role on the left flank of the pitch. The game ended 2-0 with Stocksbridge not really presenting Armthorpe with any great problems.

RETFORD UTD

New NCE League winners Retford United put out a strong team to face us.I was delighted at our approach to the game and the players characters who all matched and won their individual battles against their opponents.The game was lost by one goal to nil but Armthorpe made most of the chances where in particular an outstanding performance by Henry Sibenge who was denied by the remarkable goal keeping antics of Neil Murray on more than three or four occasions. The teams performance in terms of being "united" as one was phenomenal. They defended strongly and attacked with energy and which left me to think that if we can take this sort of performance into the very start of the season with consistency,it can only leave me feeling great optimism for the duration of the season 2007/ 2008

GLAPWELL

The opening game of the season failed to live upto the expectations of the management staff. Although we started off extremely well for the first 20 minutes, we took the lead in the first 5 minutes through some very exciting and positive play by Henry Sibenge who set up Stuart Preston. We conceded very quickly after that and again very close to half time. The second half
got worse with us conceding a third goal until James Walker thundered a well executed finish scoring 20 yards from goal. At this point we'd given ourself a chance to get back into the game but through a slack defensive error Glapwell now lead by 4-2 and then clearly put the game out of reach by scoring a 5th in the dying minutes of the game