Colchester United

 

The students were given the task of reporting on the U’s match against Carlisle United and to reflect not only on the game, but also on the One Game, One Community activities that were taking place.

 

Some great match reports were put together by the kids and, after some judging by their teachers and the U’s media team, we’ve got the best two reports included here as a thank you – the pupils themselves have helped us with the editing process.

 

We wish all of the Britannia pupils a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we hope to see you again in 2013!

 

On Saturday 20th October, Colchester United welcomed Carlisle United to the Weston Homes Community Stadium. As a result, of it being the ‘One Game, One Community' day, there were also other events happening, both before and during the game: a group encouraging children to draw more had brought some footballs with streamers attached to them and asked people to get creative and draw the patterns the streamers were making when the ball was kicked, and nearby there was a gospel choir made up of people of different ages and ethnicities but all singing in one beautiful voice.

At the start of the game, the players shook hands (it was also good to see that they all wore their Kick It Out t-shirts as they were warming up!). Meanwhile, some kids from a local school held a banner celebrating 'One Game One Community.'  The stadium holds 10,000 people, but even though there were only 3,335 people in attendance it sounded like am awful lot more as the referee blew the whistle and the crowd roared Colchester on!

Carlisle had the majority of the possession in the first thirty minutes, during which time their number 21 James Barrett had several shots on goal from the edge of the area; unfortunately they went wide.

Suddenly, against the run of play, Colchester United scored in the 24th minute through a tap in from number 33 Craig Eastmond after excellent wing play from Sanchez Watt, who is on loan from Arsenal – Eastmond couldn’t miss!

Jabo Ibhere, who had been a handful all afternoon with his strength and the way he controlled the ball, scored for Colchester in the 31st minute with a bullet finish as the home team got more and more confident and, while both teams had near misses, there were no more goals in the first half.

Carlisle started the second half brightly. In the first minute Mike Edwards and Liam Noble both missed attempts at goal. Colchester were playing well without creating many chances but they were struggling to defend crosses and were lucky that Carlisle kept missing their headers from six yards out! 

 

Surprisingly, Carlisle manager Greg Abbott turned around to a member of the crowd and asked him if he wanted to play instead! There were four minutes of extra time added before number 12 Jabo Ibhere was announced as the 'man of the match' and Colchester won the game 2-0, perhaps a little luckily though.

After the game Colchester United defender Magnus Okuonghae told me that he thought Carlisle had played hard and would be disappointed but that Colchester deserved to win. He praised Michael Rose and Jabo Ibhere for their performances and also gave his support to the Kick It Out and One Game One Community campaigns, saying that: “I don’t think anybody should be judged by the colour of their skin, we’re all working hard to be professional footballers and that should be respected.“

I agree, and from the excellent work they did on Saturday it is clear that Colchester United do too. They also play good football! 

On Saturday 20th October, at the Colchester United’s Weston Homes Community Stadium, the big match was Colchester United vs. Carlisle United. In addition to this, the club were trying to kick racism out of football by doing loads of activities to show that we should all get along with each other.

We had a go at all of them and particularly enjoyed the gospel choir – it was a shame we had to leave to take up our positions in the press area but we were excited about becoming sports journalists too!

The players shook hands before the match began. When the match started, Colchester United kicked off. A few minutes into the match the referee awarded a free kick to Carlisle United in a dangerous position, however they missed the goal and the Colchester United goalkeeper cleared the ball away easily.

Carlisle kept threatening the Colchester goal but it was the U’s who took the lead in the 24th minute with a goal from Craig Eastmond from a cross by Sanchez Watt. In the 40th minute Colchester scored again through number 12 Jabo Ibehre, who played really well for Colchester all afternoon.

The second half turned out to be more stop-start because there were a lot of injuries. In the first seven minutes, Carlisle United had two efforts for a goal for their team but they also had Mike Edwards booked for foul play.

In all honesty, this was a football match which was loaded with misses, especially from Carlisle who must have been called in for extra heading practise after the game!

Finally, the whistle was blown and it turned out that Colchester United beat Carlisle by two goals to nil in a really entertaining game. Jabo Ibehre was announced as man of the match – we even got to meet him after the game and he posed for photographs and signed our programmes, he was a top player.