Match Report

This was a massive victory. To be 2-1 down away from home with 20 minutes to go and win 3-2 is a great result. This puts us joint 3rd in the league, 3 points behind Thames Borough who are second, but with two games in hand on them. Our team was:

Edwards (GK)
Nott (LB) (Captain)
Fullone (CB)
Simmons (CB)
Carpenter (RB)
Tanton (RM)
Charlton (CM)
Piper (CM)
Head (LM)
Havers (CF)
Nethercot (CF)

Subs:
Evans
Morton

We went 1-0 down after minutes when we conceded a penalty after Daragh handled in the box. I thought both teams started quite slowly and the first 20 minutes weren’t great to watch. They had a couple of decent players going forward (10 and 7) but apart from that I thought they were quite ordinary. Early doors our passing and communication were poor and we didn’t really get going until Dan scored from a corner after half an hour. Aaron floated the ball in to the far post and Dan lost his marker and headed home.

After that we started to improve. Spence dropped into the whole well to link up play and fed the ball on to Russell well or back to the midfielders. Tant on the right and Dan on the left battled hard and Johnny and Chris ‘Chopper’ Charlton started to exert more of an influence on the game. Old Town also started to improve and the game as a whole seemed to get better the more time went on.

In the second half they took the lead again. We lost the ball in midfield and they broke down the right. The ball was crossed in and Giorgio was unfortunate to see his clearing header hit their striker. The striker tussled for the ball with Giorgio and was able to prod it to his team mate who beat Mark from close range. Soon after this Danny brought me on in right mid for Tant and replaced Daragh at left back with Pete.

The game became really open and we hit Old Town on the counter attack. I played it to Spence in the channel on the right and he crossed the ball along the floor. Dan arrived at pace and got in front of his man to ram the ball home with his right foot. We really had the wind in our sails at this point although Old Town were still dangerous and Mark made an excellent save to keep the scores level at 2-2. Then with 5 minutes to go Johnny picked the ball up in centre mid and slotted the ball through the middle. Spence was stood in an offside position but the vagaries of this law worked in our favour this time and the ref decided he wasn’t interfering. Russ pounced on the opportunity and did well to maintain his composure and hold off his man as he dribbled forward rather than just blasting it from 20 yards. As he got to about 12 yards out he mis-kicked the ball and it dribbled into the corner of the net. Cue a massive pile on and lots of male ‘bonding’ on the floor.

So all in all a great result. We probably just about deserved it and it shows what great team sprit we have that we kept battling away to get the win and then celebrated like it meant something to all of us – which it does.

There were some good individual performances, particularly Russ upfront who I thought was our best player in the first half and continues to show the balance and strength which make him such a threat. Defensively the whole back four played well and limited Old Town to few real opportunities. However man of the match was deservedly won by Dan Head. Dan is on fire at the moment and has scored 4 goals in 2 games and has now won man of the match for 2 consecutive weeks. The only down side for Dan today was getting nutmegged by a backheel from their full back. Dan claimed that “that guy was like Robinho” but I think that this is something of an overstatement.

We seem to have Crayford Arrows rather than Thames Borough next week. We are at home so if it rains a lot there is obviously a chance it will be called off. Hopefully not and we can use the big pitch to our advantage. Whoever we are playing the main things is we are now in a league position where we clearly have something to play for. We don’t know how many teams will go up, safe to say somewhere between 2 and 4. However many it is we are now in a position where game matters. For those who are unaware you can check the results on our website which is updated soon after the game finishes

http://www.fobgfc.org/fobg_tables.php

Colin Brazier does this and I know we are all very grateful for such a good service. It is good to keep tabs on our position in the league now that we are up there pushing for promotion. I thought we needed to take min 7, ideally 9 from this group of three games and we are already on 6 so let’s look to make it 9 next week.