Wednesday the 2^nd of October featured our first home youth alliance game of the season, in which we welcomed Carshalton FC, having played a number of games more than Poole Town, Carshalton sat a few places above the home side with Poole towns start to the season being very stop start and yet to really get underway due to their progression in the fa youth cup.

Both sides started a little nervy with Poole controlling the possession but Carshalton posing a real threat on the break and looking to press Poole as they so often did “after 3 passes”, came the shout from the dugout.

Early exchanges as previously mentioned were few and far between, with neither side committing to many players forward in the early stages, until the 28^th minute when Poole broke well down the right with Captain Leo Whitbread moving the ball around well in midfield he combined with the lively Connor Gill whose pass found Kieran Coombs in the 18yrd box and the striker finished neatly under pressure to give the home side the lead early on.

This only lasted 10 minutes, when in the 38^th minute a corner from the right was swung into the box, goalkeeper Stainer –Reid felt he had been fouled by an onrushing forward and the ball came loose and was poked home by the Carshalton athletic defender to level the scores 1-1.

This gave the away side the ascendancy and only a matter of minutes later the away side were in front, a corner again from the left evaded everyone in the box and ended up nestling in the far corner of net 1-2 at half time.

Second half started as nervy as the first with neither side wanting to concede an advantage early on, with first team assistant manager Luke Burbidge in the dugout assisted by ex u23s and Poole town player Oliver Mayo they made a double substitution at half time with Best and Bowmaster replacing Morland and Franklyn. A few chances went Poole’s way early on but ones that were either off target or shots from range as both Bowmaster and Cox tried from range.

Another double substitution was made around the 60^th minute mark with Poole switching to a 4-3-3 the pace of Gill was really causing the away sides defense problems. Gill latched onto a ball over the top before squaring for Bowmaster with his back to goal he set substitute Wright whose effort was well saved.

Then came the equalizer, this time from another substitute and one that had a real impact on the game Powell, Best who had an excellent second half combined with Whitbread who played a lovely pass to Powell who skipped past his man with ease before cooling slotting into the far corner. At this point there was only going to be one winner with Sault and Mcuien exceptional at the back the ball just kept coming back at the Carshalton defense, they rang the changes but unfortunately for the away side the winner came from the home side.

Skipper Whitbread leading by example second half combined with Cox, his long range strike was spilled by the keeper and Whitbread was on hand to smash the ball home from close range to put Poole 3-2 up. With only minutes remaining Carshalton pilled on the pressure and the impressive Steiner –Reid had to be alert to prevent a certain goal with a fine double save, when the whistle finally went Poole’s youngsters got what they deserved over the course of the game and started the home campaign with a deserved 3 pts.

Next up for the young dolphins is an away trip in the national youth alliance cup versus Hampton and Richmond a real tough opponent and one that Poole know they will need to be at their best for.

Manager Luke Burbidge gave his thoughts on the game: “Both sides played very well, I felt they slightly deserved to be in front at the break albeit not really created a great deal with our keeper not having much to do, second half we changed it and I felt that the boys reacted very well to that, Connor and Micheal were excellent combining in the wide areas and Connor in particular was a real handful, with the game becoming very stretched I felt the more we probed we would eventually get our rewards and that payed off firstly with a bit of brillance from Micheal and then Leo, I feel we got what we deserved from the game but Carshalton were a good side.”