Third Dan

Voyager 0 - 3 Barely Athletic

Kieran

Dave             Batts             Danny           Scott

Sam             Chris             Paul L            John T

Adam          Gareth

Subs: Al, Paul T, Jim S, Ian, Allan

A new season, but Barely's unbeaten run reaches its ninth game. Today's opponents for the first game of the season were the ones Barely faced for the last of the last: Voyager, who gave Barely a torrid time after their cup-winning exploits back at the start of the summer.

With Autumn looming, it wasn't just seasonal change in the air though - up stepped Mike Graney for his first managerial outing. The pre-match team talk was very Mike: no Dave Bassett-style testosterone; more a nostalgic wedding speech from an avuncular uncle. Who was playing up front? Mike wasn't sure, and looked around, combing his internal files to match names to faces. However his Clough/Charlton/McKenna mash-up seemed to work wonders, as despite a reasonably solid start from Voyager, their chances on goal were limited and easily snaffled up by Kieran.

At the other end Barely couldn't quite find the killer ball - Adam was as industrious as ever, but as a result Voyager assigned their best defender to keep tabs on him. Barely pressed but were unable to really test the keeper at first, with tame efforts trundling wide of the post.

That all changed after about half an hour - as Voyager looked to break, Sam dispossessed them and played it into the box, where some neat interplay saw Jim Siemens (on for Adam) put Barely 1-0 up.

The half came and went as Mike rolled the subs on and off and told everyone how wonderful they were. Ian and Al came on in defence and Paul Tovey gave Gareth a break by joining the attack. Barely started the second half well, and with the wind now at their backs, they had Voyager on the back foot. Indeed the half was marked by several Barely shots - usually from Allan or Chris - that unfortunately often sailed a yard over the crossbar, as they seemed fated not to add to their score. Voyager still had their moments and the Barely defence were far from uninvolved, but most of the action was now in the Voyager half. And two splendid goals put the result out of the home team's reach.

Firstly Chris broke up play in his own half and tore forward, holding off an attendant opponent who was matching him stride for stride before releasing Paul Tovey through on goal. The big man seemed to take an age to shoot, but one thing you can say about Paul is he is rarely panicked, and he slid it confidently home to put Barely two up.

Barely didn't slacken off, despite Voyager still pushing for that elusive goal in the odd breakaway. Chris nearly added a third when he dribbled around a challenge in the box but poked the ball wide. Sam went close with a effort at the near post that the keeper put out for a corner. But the game was truly settled when a corner was headed clear and the cry of "Danny's" went up, before the old soldier  - bizarrely out of his own half - bludgeoned one into the top of the neat. When someone put it to him that he'd rolled back the years Danny admitted there was never a year where he'd done that before.

Three-nil and that was pretty much that. A raft of Man of the Match votes went to a number of names but in the end Danny finished runner-up to Chris, who with the help of Paul Loftus had bossed the midfield. A solid start to the season: now for the league!