On Wednesday evening, the U18’s travelled to Street FC for a friendly fixture vs the Premier Division side in a 7 p.m. kick off.

The game started with Paulton looking very dominant in the early stages of the game. The lads were moving the ball well and combining effectively in the opposition half, playing fast attacking football.

Tyler Lane opened the scoring in the tenth minute when he headed home from a corner to give the visitors the lead.

This was nearly doubled twice, both Joe Paradise and Harley coming close, only to be denied by the crossbar.

Against the run of play, Street managed to find an equaliser in the thirtieth minute, scoring an absolute screamer from thirty five yards out. This gave Street a boost as they started to attack well down the left and create more of threat, some fine defending keeping the scores level.

Just before half time, Paulton managed to take the lead back when young striker Harley latched onto the end of a fantastic cross, finishing with his head from close range.

The second half started and Street FC came out with high tempo to their football and looking determined to get back into the game.

Paulton started to lose composure when in possession and were giving the ball away easily, which led to a number of attacks for the home side which could have been costly for Paulton.

Street did manage to find the equaliser, the home side’s Striker intercepting a poor pass at the back to go through on goal only to be brought down inside the box to win a penalty. Calmly finishing the spot kick, the scores were again level at 2-2.

The game now looked wide-open, with both teams playing high quality football, it was an matter of time before one of them would find the winning goal.

It was the visitors who found the breakthrough. With just eight minutes left to play, Archie Blacker played a fantastic through ball into Ben Smith who made no mistake in finding the target as he smashed the ball into the roof of the net past the oncoming goalkeeper to make Paulton deserved 3-2 winners on the night.

A fantastic game of football, we wish Street FC all the best for the upcoming season.

Josh Hurst