A strong Reserve side travelled to Weymouth to take on newly promoted Granby Rovers and appeared full of confidence for our opening fixture after a successful pre season.

This confidence was short lived as a completely uncharacteristic performance followed. In a poor first half Stur rarely played the football that had been produced regularly in pre season and only showed glimpses of any real determination from the left flank with both Tom Rudd and Steve Johnston trying to make the difference. The home side weren’t much better but their organisation and constant talking was the real difference that saw them take the lead midway through the first half. Stur seemed rocked by the goal and some poor performances all over the park had the management thinking of how they could change things to get back into the game. Some poor refereeing didn’t help the Stur cause as constant fouls from the home side went unpunished by the referee who then summed up his performance by booking the Stur skipper Lambert for diving when he was taken out by no fewer than 3 players at once.

The first half ended with Stur trailing by a goal to nil and it left the manager trying to rally the players and get them back up for the second half. No changes were made but it was made clear they would follow shortly if things didn’t improve.

The second half started and no improvement was made so with 10 minutes of the second half gone 2 substitutions were made. Off came the Geddes brothers who were replaced by Logan and Lauriston. A quick reshuffle in the backline to accommodate Lauriston saw Miller move across to right back and Logan slotted in up front alongside Ambler with D Johnston moving into a more familiar role on the right side of midfield.

The changes seemed to have an instant impact on the game with Logan making a real difference. Some clever hold up play instantly paid off when Logan laid the ball off to D Johnston who then spotted a great run from left back by Rudd who found the bottom corner.

A much improved performance but it was still not going to prove to be enough as Stur couldn’t quite get it together and a combination of poor passing and finishing in the final third stopped Stur pushing on to get the victory.

Dickinson had to be quick of his line on several occasions to keep Stur in the game but his efforts weren’t rewarded when with 10 minutes to go the Granby Striker picked up the ball on the left hand side and coolly finished under the diving Dickinson.

Stur wasted a couple more long range efforts and it was just not going to be our day. The game ended with the newly promoted Granby holding on to win 2 – 1 and proving we are not going to walk over teams this season with half-hearted performances. Let’s hope we learn our lesson and put this week’s poor performance behind us.

One plus side from today’s fixture was that the fines made a nice little income with the following players/management being fined:

Alex Dickinson: late: £1 paid
Rich Love: Dirty Boots: £1 paid
Tom Rudd: Late: £1 paid
Erkan Mete: Late £1 paid
Steve Johnston: Late; Dirty boots, Not attending Churchill: £3 not paid
Dave Johnston: Late, Not attending Churchill: £2 not paid
Ryan Ambler: 10 mins late: £1.50 paid
Scott Logan: Late: £1 paid
Scott Bennett: 10 mins late: £1.50 paid
Fozzy: Late: £1 paid