Senior Strike Starts Second’s Season

Edinburgh University 2s football team started their campaign in the Lothian and Edinburgh AFA Premier Division with a poor 2-0 defeat away at Seaforth Highlanders. A repeat of last week’s performance was not an option, especially for a team that are potential challenges for the league title. However, that was not going to be the case in what turned out to be a comfortable 3-1 victory away at Blackridge.
Blackridge and Burgh met on the opening day of last season, with the University boys running out 4-0 winners on an expansive pitch. Yet, Blackridge’s home ground is cramped in comparison and having drawn on their last visit, Edinburgh knew the game was not going to be easy.
Burgh’s team was slightly changed from the previous week with Sime coming in for the absent Meehan in central midfield. The Irishman had received free tickets to watch Ireland v Italy in the world cup qualifiers. Roberts was also absent, but a fully fit Darren Leslie was available again, ready to slot into his usual centre-half role. Archer also started on the right, which pushed Erskine up front, the injured Galloway the man to miss out.
Yet, the side gelled from the off, playing some great football all over the park. Blackridge at times had little response to the Uni’s quick movement, both on and off the ball. Steve Kenny, on more than one occasion, used nifty footwork to by-pass Blackridge’s stranded right-back, only for his crosses to fail to find a target.
This did not matter however as 21 minutes into the game Edinburgh scored their first LEAFA goal of the season. The ball was out on the right wing with Archer, who simply passed it sideways to Sime, who knocked the ball in front of the galloping Senior. Nobody closed him down, so the left-back shot, and with a little help from a deflection the ball slowly went over the already fallen Blackridge keeper. Senior scored Burgh’s first LEAFA goal last season, also against Blackridge, so this is hopefully a sign of things to come for the university team.
Edinburgh did not let this goal slow them down in any way, but simply continued to play attractive football. And the domination continued when Steve Kenny scored a superb free-kick. Kenny whipped the ball with his left foot over the wall and into the top-right hand corner of the goal, the Blackridge keeper watched, routed to the spot.
Burgh could have had more goals to follow before the end of the half, with both Alex Maxwell and Mario Velez showing sublime close control to ride four or five challenges before both firing on the goal. However, it was the home side who instead, offered some resistance to the onslaught. A long throw into the Edinburgh box was not cleared and Blackridge fired the ball through Agnew’s legs to claw themselves back into the game with their only real opportunity of the half.
Half-time came and went and so too did most of the football. After only 5 minutes Tom Agnew launched the ball forward from a freekick, the Blackridge centre half misread it completely, which let Calum Erskine in to kill the game off with a delicate finish into the net.
With the score at 3-1 the home side really gave up and with 30 minutes to go Edinburgh brought off Erskine and Senior to be replaced by O’Neill and Ramsay. However, most of the impetuous had been taken out of the game with Burgh’s 3rd goal and the last 3rd by-passed with little football. Yet, both sides did have one chance to score, both missing guilt edge chances. Mario Velez kneed the ball over the bar from 4 yards, although he was offside anyway. And Blackridge managed to strike the post from 3 yards, with the goal at their mercy.
Yet 3-1 it remained. The only sour note was seeing centre back Dan Paterson being carried off with a suspected ankle injury, however manager Stuart Robertson came on to steady the ship to the final whistle.