Postal Strikes Frustrate Kidlington

The woodwork, some resilient defending and some excellent goalkeeping combined to keep Kidlington out as a strong Grove squad took the points on Saturday

The first half of the opening game was goalless, due primarily to two brilliant saves. The first from the visiting keeper Jack Hardingtoff, who tipped a powerful header from Luca Sykes on to the crossbar. Not to be outdone, home keeper Archie Devlin produced a stunning double save to keep the scores level. After half time Hardingtoff was again supreme, frustrating Sykes on several occasions. Jake Farmer broke the deadlock with an excellent shot from distance and Scott Ballard took his chance well to put Grove 2-0 up. Not to be denied the headlines, Hardingtoff saw his enormous goal-bound kick deflected past Devlin to give a final score of 3-0 to Grove.

The second game was all one-way traffic towards the Grove goal, but the home side - prompted by a dynamic display from Ben Stewart in midfield - were frustrated by the woodwork seven times including Marcus Tranter hitting the post four times from the midfield. Stewart and the lively home forward Callum Rolfe were also unfortunate to see efforts rebound off the frame of the goal, and all three were also denied by excellent saves by the strong Grove keeper. Home keeper Archie Littlewood was a spectator as shots rained in on his opposite number, but Grove kept their shape with men behind the ball, and their resilient defending along with a little fortune kept Kidlington out to give a score of 0-0 for this game and a 3-0 victory on aggregate to Grove.