Match Report

We played some decent football on Sunday and I don’t believe that 5-0 was a fair reflection of our efforts. Catford probably deserved to win to be fair as they pinged the ball around nicely and created lots of chances, but we can take lots of positives from the game.

Anyone who has ever played at Ten-Em-Bee Sports club will agree that it is a lovely pitch: big, flat, and there was a nice bit of dew on the surface. Unfortunately we found ourselves 4-0 down at half time as the opposition converted some well made chances. We switched things round slightly in the second half; Paul Burford replaced Steve Earwaker as goalkeeper, and Steve Pester moving back to centre back and shoring things up at the back alongside the tenacious Andy Cobham. Chris Greenhough had a cracking game at right back, defending resiliently and pushing forward appropriately as we have become accustomed to. Chris linked up well with Lee Brackell who was replaced by Dan Earwaker after 70 minutes. Jas Ranoo had a solid game at left back and we held Catford at 0-0 for the majority of the second half, only conceding the fifth goal late on as we pushed forward in search of a goal of our own.

Indeed, our attacking was the real story of the second half. Paul Tanton and Dan Head showed what a good partnership they make up front, with Paul dropping short and linking the play up and Dan making intelligent runs in behind the opposition back four. It was one of these runs which led to Dan being fouled in the box and us winning a penalty. In the interests of Gary Harrigan’s self esteem I won’t dwell on this matter for long, suffice to say that it resembled Chris Waddle’s penalty against Germany in the 1990 World Cup semi-final. We definitely deserved a goal to reward our efforts in the second half; Jason Miller moved into the centre of the park and influenced the game effectively, shielding the ball well and spraying some great passes around the park.

So all in all lots of positives to take from this game. We played lots of great football in the second half and showed that we cause a decent team real problems in defence. We should take confidence from this as the season progresses, and bear in mind that we can only improve as key players return from injury.

Man of the Match: Jason Miller & Sam Evans