Originally Posted by TonyPark

On a cold, wet, windy afternoon at Carrington, United's Under-18's were well beaten by a strong physical Newcastle United side. As the teams lined up for the midday kick-off, every player in the United side was smaller than their counterparts, a factor that will make it hard on the young United lads for most of the campaign.

Febian Brandy gave United the lead after good build up play from Christy Fagan, scoring from about eight yards out. However Newcastle deservedly equalised within ten minutes. Then on the stroke of half-time Brandy scored his and United's second with a clever chip over the Geordie keeper.

With the wind behind them in the second half, it was thought that United would have the advantage, however, Newcastle dominated the play and scored a third after a mistake from Craig Cathcart. Newcastle went further ahead and scored a soft goal after Zieler and Michael Lea failed to deal with a low cross into the box. To be fair to Lea, it was his first game back from a long injury, as he was recovering from scar tissue on his thigh.

The United lads battled hard and never gave in but were simply not strong enough......with a number of 16 year-old's in the side the Reds have what is possibly the youngest team in the league.

Team: Zieler, Eckersley, Lea, Chester, Cathcart, McCormack, Derbyshire, C. Evans, Brandy, Fagan, Bryan

Sub: Drinkwater (6), Welbeck (7)

Scorers: Brandy 2

A point of interest.....United had five Manchester lads in the side (Ecks, Brandy, Bryan, Drinkwater & Welbeck), two from just outside Manchester (Chester & Lea) and four from Ireland (McCormack, Evans, Cathcart and Fagan)

Back to our roots!

Finally, the under 16's were 3-1 up with 15 mins to go on the all weather pitch.