Birmingham Citadel 3; Wylde Green Wanderers 2

Birmingham Citadel 3 (Simon Black 2, Dave Maybury) ; Wylde Green Wanderers 2

Citadel came into this game on the back of a good performance against Sutton and needed to carry on where they left off. However this didn't happen. Wylde Green came out the blocks at a ridiculous pace and completely took Citadel by surprise. The back four looked like they'd never met before and Wylde Green created chance after chance. Eventually after roughly 15 minutes of none stop pressure, in which they had a goal rightly disallowed for offside, they got the break through they deserved (unfortunately I can't remember how). Their second goal came when a miss cue form Paul Dickinson let the striker in one on one, and he slotted it home nicely. Another chance came and the strikers header produced a fine one handed save down to his left by Stuart Stanley. After about half an hour of comical Citadel football, they began to get back into the game. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere a goal came. The ball found its way to Simon about 6 yards out and he buried it top corner. Suddenly Citadel got on top. Citadels second goal came from a corner. Si's first attempt from the corner wasn't cleared properly and he received the ball back from Craig Mack to have another go. This cross was much better and Dave Maybury rose at the back post to power a header home. Somehow Citadel had managed to draw level. HT 2-2

The second half was much better from Citadel although yet again we didn't start the second half well. After roughly ten minutes Ian Law was introduced as a sub for Craig. Ian slotted into the middle with Steve Buchan coming out to the right. The change sparked some life back into Cit and Ian began to run the game. His pace and passing were too much for a tiring Wylde Green and he immediately began to create chances for Citadel. Then another substitution made things worse for Wylde Green. Ramoth came on for Shane and his pace and trickery began to create more chances. The third goal however came out of nowhere. Somehow Simon Black ended up with the ball on the edge of the left hand side of the box. His shot, though not sweetly struck, took a nasty bounce in front of the diving goalkeeper and bounced over his hands and in. Wylde Green did create some break away chances but every time Stuart was equal to them. Then Ramoth had a hat-trick of chances. He broke away down the right, skipped past one defender and as he went past the other he was brought down. The ref however decided that the ball had gone too far in front of Ramoth and so no penalty was awarded. The second chance came when he raced onto a chipped ball from Ian Law. Ramoth got to it before the keeper and his attempted lob went just wide. The third chance was the best of the lot, and one which really should have been taken. Ian curled a delightful ball through the defence and Ramoth just didn't put enough power or placement on the ball and the keeper saved comfortably. The whistle finally went and Citadel had their first win of the season. It wasn't as good a performance as the previous week, but eventually Citadel got the win they deserved. FT 3-2

Team:
Stuart Stanley
Chris Black
Jack Wilkinson
Paul Dickinson
David Maybury
Marc Richardson
Craig Mack
Steve Buchan
Simon Black
Shane Hopkins
Richard Black

Subs:
Ian Law for Craig Mack
Ramoth Gudza for Shane Hopkins
Gareth Murphy