After an unplanned break to their season, our youngsters returned to action as our Allied Counties Youth Football League Subsidiary Cup Campaign got underway against Ash United this evening.

With Johno unfortunately unwell and Millsy living it up in Benidorm. Our Under 18s were under the trusted leadership of Assistant Manager, Simon Eade and Team Secretary, John Goodwin.

The Allied Counties Youth Football League Subsidiary Cup works in a similar format to the UEFA Champions League, our youngsters will initially play 4 games and if we finish in the top 8, we’ll qualify for the quarter finals.

Our youngsters got Round 1 of the group stages of to a fast start and with a little bit of help from our hosts, took the lead in the thirty-sixth minute after an own goal.

HALF TIME: Ash United 0 v Reading City 1

At Half-Time, Eade and Goodwin decided to change things up and swapped top goalscorer Lucas Taplin who had played eighty-two minutes and scored in our first teams 2-1 win only 48 hours before for Harlen Lewis.

Joe Corker was also introduced in place of Will Norton.

With the second half underway, Eade and Goodwin’s substitution paid off as Harlen Lewis made an immediate impact making it 0-2.

With fifty-three minutes on the clock, our stand-in management team once again called on their bench and swapped Reiss Baker for Charlie Johnson.

With sixty minutes on the clock, the second half might as well of been the substitution show as Joe Corker found our third goal of the evening.

With eighty one minutes played, Ash United found a late consolation goal but it wasn’t enough to challenge the Cityzens and the referee called time on proceedings in Surrey.

FULL TIME: Ash United 1 v Reading City 3 

The Cityzens can now look ahead to returning to Allied Counties Youth Football League Central Division Action where they’ll be looking to continue their charge for the title when they welcome Burnham FC to the Rivermoor on Wednesday 19th March.