It was cup action for Wear United FC Youth Teams Under 14s today against a team that beat us 7-1 in the first round last season in Waldridge Park Juniors, who now find themselves second two divisions above us!

Today’s game was always going to be a very tough one, and Waldridge Park found themselves 1-0 up the very first minute, catching Wear’s defence off guard.

Just second later Waldridge were through again but Thomas positioned himself perfectly in goal and saved a rocket of a shot at close range.

This seemed to wake Wear up as we seemed to find some fire and push ourselves forward. Charlie had a great opening 15 minutes getting on the ball up front but also tracking back and helping his defence at every opportunity.

On the 22nd minute, Junior picked the ball up on the left side of midfield and fired a shot into the box which was off target but found Luke waiting in acres of space to slot in a lovely placed finish into the bottom corner. 1-1 and game on!

Wear pushed and pushed for a second before half time, but it was Waldridge who managed to claw themselves back in front with a smart finish 3 minutes before half time.

After the restart, Wear had the better of the play. Aidan found himself through and tried to beat the Waldridge keeper, agonisingly hitting the post.

For the next 15 minutes it was a fierce midfield battle with chances hard to come by, but Luke once again found himself in loads of space in the box, only to fire it over the bar with the keeper rushing him.

Shortly after, Waldridge were 3-1 up and you it could have been all over with just 10 minutes to go.

That wasn’t the case though…

Wear dug deep and managed to score through David who scored a beauty from an acute angle to give us hope. 3-2

3 minutes later, after an onslaught of attacking by Wear, Corey crossed in an absolute pearler of a corner finding Levi with a looped header over the keeper to make it 3-3 with just a minute to go!!

In the final seconds, Waldridge managed to get a corner, taken short and caught Wear sleeping. They drove a low cross into the box passing everyone except the Waldridge player who slotted into the bottom corner with the very last kick of the game to win it. 4-3

Unfortunately Wear find themselves out of the cup, but the overall performance was absolutely class! To play like that against a very good side from two divisions above us shows the progress we’ve made over the last 2 and a bit years. ?

This team are going from strength to strength, and now we concentrate on the league.

@mo and son’s barbers sponsored Player of the match went to Max at the back who was absolutely outstanding. ?

And of course a huge thank you to our kit sponsors Harrison & Brown Furniture (new kits coming soon).