At last the season begins and USL are back with a difference. The Galacticos tag has been removed and United Sporting Luton’s Saturday team will be known simply as USL Saturday. There are many differences in the squad too, for the third year running manager Peter Wilson has spent the summer trying to rebuild the squad as players move on. USL would like to take this opportunity to thank the players for their service and wish them well at their new clubs. With players leaving and getting straight into teams in the South Midland Division One it is also testament to the quality of players that have been playing in the Luton District South Beds Premier League. As players leave new players come in and USL would like to welcome back two of its strongest players from two seasons ago as David Mitchell and Michael Pazik both return to the club this season. Also with Dan Taylor returning from university and Ben Jefcoate injury free and committing to Saturday football it is the equivalent of two new signings. Peter Wilson has worked hard to acquire the services of a number of other players during the close season and USL would like to send a warm welcome to Daniel Coady, Richard Bonass, Phil Cook, Richard Samson, Amar Daved, Sean Morrell, Terry Tavernier and Will Gibbs; we wish you well and hope you enjoy many successful season with this club.

Into Action

USL started the season with a strong test against a Lewsey Park side that narrowly lost out in the county cup finals last season. USL and Park had three close encounters last season so this opener was always going to be hard to predict especially with so many changes to the USL line up from last year. A scrappy encounter finished with Lewsey running out deserved winners 3-0 leaving USL with plenty to think about before they play Lewsey again next week in the LDSB Champions League Group Stages.

USL’s pregame plans to an unfortunate twist on Friday with newly appointed captain, and main goal threat, Ben Jefcoate being admitted to hospital following a week of suffering from suspected food poisoning. Defensive stronghold Adam Powell also had to pull out after straining his hamstring at training which meant starts for Dan Dawkins and new signing Sean Morrell. Phil Cook, Dan Coady, Richard Samsom and Terry Tavernier were also all making their full debuts with fellow new boy Will Gibbs on the bench. USL lined up with confidence and excitement at the new season ahead and started the brighter of the two teams putting early pressure on the Lewsey defence but not really testing the ‘keeper. The game turned in Lewsey's favor on ten minutes when a hopefully long ball over the top and a defensive miscommunication allowed Park’s number eleven to coolly stroke past Coady to make it 1-0. Park continued to have the majority of the play and could have been 2-0 up when a similar long ball was again steered home by the Lewsey striker only for him to be ruled offside. Lewsey weren’t happy with the decision and following it USL’s forwards were apparently offside every time a ball was played forwards. USL however created chances to equalize, some nice football down the left hand side saw Sansom cut the ball across goal for Dawkins and only a last ditch challenge deflected his goal bound effort wide for a corner. Player Manager Wilson then had two great chances to equalize, the first rolling out to him on the edge of the box but he struck high and wide and the second when a poor ‘keeper clearance fell to him 30yards out but his attempted lob went wide. These chances aside though Lewsey were dominating most of the play, their right winger was running circles around the USL defence but it was the left winger who doubled the lead ten minutes before half-time. Picking the ball up in the middle of the pitch he pushed forwards unchallenged and unleashed a vicious shot into the bottom corner from 25 yards out. Both teams continued to scrap away with some excellent last ditch defending from Taylor, D.Mitchell and Pazik. Half-time: Lewsey Park 2 v 0 USL Saturday

At half-time USL were encouraged to play the ball more through midfield and to make the most of the footballing ability of Howe, Morrell and Cook and to get the ball to stick upfront more with Dawkins and Tavernier. Lewsey’s interchanging positions had caused USL some problems in the first half but with a greater understanding of it and a change of their own positioning they dealt with it better second half. Lewsey continued to have most of the ball but were restricted to few clear chances and only added to their lead when the number ten was allowed to get free at a corner and rose highest to head home into the corner of the net. Gibbs came on for Pazik to make his debut and later in the game M.Mitchell and Simpson came on to get their first minutes for the season. The game became quite a scrappy affair, not helped by the referee who’s decisions infuriated both teams throughout the afternoon and Wilson, who should have known better, picked up a silly booking for ‘unsporting behaviour’ when questioning why the ref was doing nothing about the amount of fouls, ‘afters’ and foul and abusive language being used by the opposition. With the league and FA specifically stating this season that they wanted to cut down on the amount of foul and abusive language being used this referee appeared not to care despite players swearing at each other and at him! Lewsey were deserved winners but the performance of the referee left a sour after taste to USL’s afternoon. Full-time: Lewsey Park 3 v 0 USL Saturday

Reaction

After the game manager Wilson had the following to say about the game “We weren’t great today, we looked rusty and didn’t keep our shape well but given the ins and outs over the summer and that half this team have never played together before it could have been worse. Lewsey caused us a lot of problems in the first half which I feel we combated better in the second but we failed to look dangerous going forward all day. Saying that though if we had taken one of our chances at 1-0 or if we hadn’t let it that sloppy first goal then who knows what could have happened. We’ve got them again next week so we know a bit better what they’re about now so it should be a closer game and hopefully all the players will be up for it a bit more for our first game at the new ground. There might also be a couple of new faces in by next week too. Overall I’m disappointed about today, I can’t really say we deserved to take anything from the game, Lewsey were the better side, but the performance of the ref infuriated me but I guess you have to accept that at this level of football. I know we can’t have games without them but I have players turning up and paying money to enjoy a game of football and today every one of them felt let down by the referee – thankfully no one got seriously injured and the kids standing around watching probably have heard it all before – it just makes a bit of a mockery of this new initiative we were told about at the league meeting! We move forward onto next week, take the positives we can from today and use the negatives to make us stronger for the season and strengthen our weaknesses. The fans will see a better performance next week.”

• Man of the match - Ricky Howe
• Fair play winner - Richard Sanson
• Scorers - None
• Assists - None
• Cards - Peter Wilson (Yellow)
• Referee -
• Attendance -