Match Report

Our third draw in a row. My third yellow card of the season. The third time that Adam Steward has had his highlights done in as many weeks. That sums up the game really.

Battle of the blondes down our right hand side saw Adam harass the opposition all game and continue to make darting and effective runs round the blind side of the full back. Piers returned from three weeks away (honestly) and showed a tough and battling performance that was highlighted by breaking up possession deep in the middle of the park and putting in a slide rule pass for David Thompson to run on to, he attacked the defender as only Dave can do, jinking left, right and left again (yep three times!) before being so unselfish to pass across the double three yard line (keep up…6) for Adam to slot it in from 3 yards out.

Save of the match in the first half came from…………no, wait for it guys, those that were there know it was in the second half not the first!

Well it was Luke Dunne who made tackle of the game as Luke misjudged a bounce and the Wickham defender pounced on the through ball, took a couple of touches and was about to pull the trigger with his third when Luke got his toe on the end of it, and away the ball went, then Luke nonchalantly spun back towards the attacker and took the ball past him and knocked it upfield for more good possession in the final third of the pitch.

One nil at the half but it could have been 3 with Luke unlucky from a powerful header after Adams corner, and an even more unlucky header from Dave after excellent play saw a ball whipped in from the right hand side smash into Dave three yards out that went sailing over the bar.

Wickham now had the slope, sun and the sand (in the goal mouth, we had to shovel 3 spades worth in before the game).

As it got to the final 30 minutes of the game (the final third!) Wickham were getting more and more possession, they had three good attempts on goal that Leigh was equal to, punching, parrying and saving all that was aimed at him. With this amount of pressure and the ensuing third corner of the game the ball came out from the pack and their number three smashed the ball goalwards, Leigh dived spectacularly to his left and our left back (normally number 3) Paul Parsons spectacularly dived high and left also, to tip over the bar. One Ivor would have been proud of 3 seasons ago. A certain red, became a yellow after some reasoning between player and referee, but the resulting penalty was about three inches from Leigh's outstretched and mended hand to make it 1-1.

So no last minute goals this week, and we walked off thinking about the three games we could have won, and whether to give Ben Dutton his third MOM award in as many games (we didn’t, Adam was MOM!).