City Overpowered

A rampant Kettering Town Elite proved too strong for City who were well-beaten 8-0.

Unlike they had done well in much of the reverse fixture earlier in the season, the hosts failed to contain the prolific Pharrell Blyde as the powerful forward netted five times.
City's hopes for a solid start were undone within two minutes of the first whistle as the striker took advantage of some defensive hesitation to steal the ball and shoot home. He netted from another one-on-one shortly afterwards as the home defence hesitated for an offside flag that never came.

The third goal was harsh on keeper Christian Carter, who performed admirably throughout, when he made a smart stop only for Kettering to react quicker to the rebound - a goal that gave them a 3-0 lead at the midway point.

As they had done at the start of the match, City conceded another goal unnecessarily at the beginning of the second half when they didn't deal with a corner and were punished.

Kettering continued to dominate throughout the final two quarters and four further goals followed.

There were a number of passages of play when City made the most of the fantastic Perdiswell surface and passed the ball around but these were few and far between, so one of the objectives over the remainder of the season will be to take much greater care of the ball.

City lost four players to injury between the warm-up and third quarter but battled gamely to the final whistle and credit to both Harry Stone and Tom Parry for putting their hands up to play in unaccustomed positions to help their side out.

No excuses though, they were beaten by the better side and all will dust themselves down and go again next Saturday.