Match Report

Unlucky Guild Gain Well Earned Point

A poor refereeing display and unusual decisions by the referee cost the Guild dearly Saturday. However, given the situation with ten men for the entire second half and nine men with five minutes remaining, the Guild would have taken a point.

Tudor Sports, fresh from consecutive victories against much-fancied Charlton and a four nil thumping of Bridon came into this fixture in good form. The Guild wanted to put last week’s disappointment behind them and get back to winning ways.

The game started well for the Guild who changed their approach and dominated the opening twenty minutes or so. Some nice play and quick feet from Cooke was saved well by Bradley in the Tudor goal. On 15 minutes a free kick from Williams J was struck well, but was just over the bar.

One or two other opportunities were to be had before Tudor started to grind themselves back into the game. The game started to turn physical after about 20 minutes and a spate of bookings followed, breaking up the tail end of the half. 0-0 at the break, but the Guild the much better side.

During the team talk, referee Mr Roberts walked over to a Farnborough player and miraculously enough showed him the red card. The referee said that he already booked the same player twice and forgot to send him off. A clear mistake from the referee who had a poor afternoon. This was to prove a turning point in the game and it meant that the Guild was to play the entire second half with ten men. We decided to approach this loss positively and switched to three at the back.

With the crazy decision now at the back of our minds, we continued where we left off and still looked the better side, despite the deficit. Perkins had an effort well saved by Bradley, but against the run of play, Tudor went ahead when Adams finished from close range. Further bookings were to be had when some far worse incidents tended to be ignored. McTaggert went clean through only to see his effort skew well wide.

Williams replaced Hughes and Wray replaced Cleaver.

The Guild pushed and pushed for the equaliser when with 15 minutes to go it came from the best piece of play all afternoon where a Perkins shot eventually found the back of the net. One all, and at this stage it was Tudor who started to tire and it looked as though Farnborough would push on and win it. Down the right hand side, the substitutes combined and Wray spanked a superb right footed cross to Williams L whose header was saved by Bradley. A stunning dribble by Cooke saw him pass three defenders but the finish just could not be found.

With five minutes of normal play remaining, another Farnborough player was sent off for asking the referee a question.

Farnborough has not had a player sent off for almost two years and now we had two sent off in the same game!

At the final whistle, both sides were left with a point but both sides frustrated at the way the game was officiated.

In all, we went into this fixture with a strong squad wanting all three points, however, given the events on the day a point was well earned given we played forty five minutes with ten men and the last five with nine. However, on balance I thought we should have nicked the game and looked the better side across the ninety.

Man of The Match was perfectly split between Perkins and Travers, with Travers getting the managers nod. Travers was both versatile and efficient, rarely gave the ball away and provided the team with a whole hearted performance. Perkins was his usual self; probing forward covering every blade of grass and scored a lovely goal to earn us the point.

Our next fixture will now be next year against Lewisham in the cup. For the third consecutive tie, we play higher league opposition and once again we will have to be at our best if we wish to proceed. The carrot at the end of the stick for this game will be the opportunity to play Hollands & Blair who are probably the current best side in the KCL.

Let’s not slack off over Xmas. Let’s make sure we attend training regularly and make sure we can all play in the interclub friendly on Sunday 27th December.

Farnborough: 1. Hawkes; 2.Judge; 3.Davis; 4.Elliot; 5.Travers; 6.Abbott; 7.Williams J; 8. Perkins; 9.Hughes; 10. Cooke; 11. Cleaver
Subs: 16.Wray for 11.Cleaver; 10. Hughes for 12.Williams;
Sub not used: 13.Kendall; 14.Stevens & 15. Warren

Referee: Mr Malcolm Roberts