Wales o40s defeat o35s in exhibition match!

The Wales Veterans' Football Association were proud to host an ‘exhibition’ match between its Wales o40s squad, under the guidance of long-term manager, Laurence Owen and an o35s ‘Representative’ squad, ‘hand-picked’ by Matthew Maksimovic, for this fixture.

In an entertaining match...writes a pitch-side reporter... both teams can take real positives from their performances. The Wales o35s put in a very creditable show against a well-established Wales 40s Representative squad, who although weakened by holiday unavailability, opened a 5-goal cushion, through a Sam Brown hat-trick and a brace by Paul Keddle. The o35s however, showed great character, determination and quality to get the score back to 5-3, through Joshua Evans (2 and Ryan James, before Rob Shannon completed the scoring for the o40s. Manager, Owen said “I am really pleased with the performance because, despite absentees, I was still able to put out a very strong squad.”

O35s manager for the day, Matthew Maksimovic, commented, “at this stage it was a bit of a trial to see how it worked-out, with the aim of hopefully having an official WVFA o35s side in place for next season.“ He continued, “It was very much a starting point and we were mindful of not selecting players who were competing in the WVFA o35s Cup Preliminaries the following day, but all went well, so hopefully there will be more developments in the future. A special mention to Ricky Carter who was the o35s MoM”

Earlier in the day, a number of the o40s squad received their Welsh 'test match' caps for representing the Wales Veterans' Football Association in an international fixture.