Wales 'triple header' at St George's Park!

The Wales Veterans' Football Association were delighted to accept an invitation from good friends, RAF Veterans, to take two sides to the home of English football, St George’s Park in Burton-on-Trent. Wales duly obliged, taking an o40s squad to face the RAF o35s and an o50s squad to face the RAF o50s. This also coincided with an invitation from England Veterans to take a Wales squad to the same venue to face their very strong o55s group......

RAF 35s 1, Wales 40s 2
With a number of absentees due to holidays, Wales took a decent o40s squad to face an RAF o35s at St Georges Park...and taking into consideration the opposition and the personnel available, Manager, Laurence Owen, selected a 4-3-3 formation, which proved to be the right decision.......writes Laurence Owen...[/i]

It could have been a disastrous start for Wales, when the first shot of the game was superbly tipped on to the woodwork by Welsh stopper, Ian Davies! An early let off for Wales, who quickly got into a great shape and the front three of Nathan Williams, Mark Dunne and Steve Davies defended energetically from the front, whilst the back four, controlled by skipper Mark Dodds grew in confidence as the game continued at a rapid pace and between Davies, Bassett, Williams, Hillier and Dodds they kept the opposition at bay.
With the midfield of Connochie, Rees and Michaels allowing no time for the opposition to settle it was no surprise when from a tackle in the middle of the park a breakaway found Williams who held off two challenges and his pass fell to the ever willing Davies to strike from 6 yards out. The RAF are always a dangerous side to play and their touch and movement was as good as ever but any half chances they created were snuffed out due to an entire team effort. Chris Harding, Damien Daniels, Mike Jones and Ben Bannon were all introduced from 20 minutes, due to the frantic pace of the game and Bannon with his first touch smashed in a header from a corner on 27 minutes to make it 2-0 going into the break.

Big John Howe made his Wales debut in goal replacing the impressive Davies at half time as part of a squad rotation to prevent burn out. The game ebbed and flowed, Davies had the best chance on 55 minutes when his pace took him past the RAF defence only to be hacked down by the on-rushing keeper, to his credit Davies tried to stay on his feet which probably saved the keeper from a red card as yellow was shown. With 25 mins remaining the RAF forced a fine save from Howe, only for the rebound to be precisely stroked into the net for 2-1. On 87 minutes Davies, again, was clean through only for the keeper to fly out of his area to hack him down with an awful challenge and he was rightly red carded! The seriousness of the situation soon came to light as Davies was unable to move. He was treated by the RAF staff and Wales’ physio Sian Hunt and subsequently airlifted to hospital. Although the game ended with a fine 2-1 win for Wales, Davies’ injury put a real dampener on the occasion, although we can now thankfully report his MRIs scans were clear and he has now being discharged from hospital. Everyone at Wales Veterans' Football wishes Steve a speedy recovery!

RAF 050s 0, Wales o50s 6
In the other RAF encounter, Wales o50s were emphatic winners against their counterparts, scoring 6 unanswered goals! A fine hat-trick from newly crowned o50s top scorer, Neil ‘Willie’ Williams and further goals from Nick Francis, Sean Smith and Ricky John capped a terrific performance.

England o55s 4, Wales o55s 1
In the last game of the day a tough o55s encounter between England and Wales o55s ended with a strong England squad securing a comfortable win. Mike Fredriksen was on target for the visitors.