The start of a new season for St. John's school football team saw a fixture with league champions Southborough.

St. Johns kicked off, passing the ball round well and using the width of the pitch. The attacking skills of Greg Lowe enabled him to slot the ball through the defence to set up Nick Ireland's first goal. Chris Hill made a run from the half-way line and his pass found Nick in space, who forced a good save from the Southborough keeper. The resulting corner resulted in an excellent far post header by Nick. Some great defensive work from St. John's found Dave Saxby in space, who set up a counter-attack by passing the ball up the wing to Nick, who ran it into the box to smash in a marvellous shot which finished off his hat-trick.

The second half was more even with both teams defending well and counter-attacking whenever possible. Alex Drummond slid the ball off for a corner, after stopping a good run from a Southborough forward. The corner was taken quickly and made its way into the St. John's box. Southborough players reacted more quickly and scored.  St. John’s replied soon afterwards with a fourth goal from Nick Ireland. The 4-1 scoreline flattered St. John's a bit, and the game was closer than the score suggested. Man of the match was Dave Saxby.

    Simon Lewis