Saturday 24th August and Holywood 2003’s were invited to play a pre-season friendly against Comber Rec FC 2003’s at Billy Neill playing fields, 9 am kick off.

Holywood, through injuries and holidays, were only able to field 11 players against a strong Comber squad. The game kicked off with Holywood on the front foot and putting Comber under pressure with their good passing and strength going forward.
Comber, after a while, started coming into the game and had a one on one chance against Simon White in our goals, only to shoot wide.
This was a wake-up call for the Holywood team who now took control of the game with Owen Round driving us forward from midfield and playing a ball through for Ben Geraghty who was brought down inside the box, The referee pointed to the spot “penalty”,
Ben Lifted the ball set it down and confidently placed it to the Keepers left 0-1.
The second Holywood goal came shortly after with really good work from our new left back Calum Bell, Calum chased back to stop a Comber attack and with the help of Adam Murphy they won the ball back for us, Adam passed to Adam Atkinson in the centre of the pitch who played a beautiful ball through for Ben to bag his second of the game slotting past the oncoming keeper 0-2.
With half time almost there the game could have been all over for Comber as Harry Boyd playing on the right wing unleashed a thunderous strike that crashed off the bar and out for a goal kick.
The second half saw Comber having a strong start trying to get back into the game, but between our keeper Simon White and our excellent back four of James McCoy, Michael Weir, our captain Robbie Jeffrey and Calum Bell we took all they could throw at us and held strong with the best of the defensive blocks coming from James McCoy sliding in to stop a certain goal.
With the storm now weathered Holywood started getting the ball back down on the ground and playing some really good passing with the attacks coming down the right hand side of the pitch with Owen Round and Harry Boyd showing great skill to keep the goal threats coming.
The pressure was mounting on Comber who conceded a corner on the left hand side, Holywood used a worked on set piece that was fed out from Harry to Luke Spence who put a pin point ball straight onto Robbie Jeffrey’s head to make it 0-3 with about fifteen minutes left to play.
Holywood now well on top started to fade a bit coming to the end of the game with the hot weather and the lack of subs allowing Comber to have one last push and with eight minutes left on the clock a Comber attack resulted in confusion in our defence and Comber getting a goal back through a Holywood own goal.
Holywood then went into defensive mode to see out the game with the whole team working together to stop any further pressure or goal threats.

A very well done to our 2003 team today, all over the park we played very well and bossed the game for most of the match.

A special mention to Harry Boyd and Calum Bell making their debut today.

Ricky, Richard and Ryan.