Match Report

This week we met Wickham Park Res in the Kent Cup. Luckily enough we had the luxury of two subs, which didn't look likely early on in the week where at one point we only had 10!

I missed the first half hour of the game but I understand that everyone was there bright and early only for Chris to turn up without the kit, which then left everyone sitting round for 45 minutes whilst he retreated home to collect it! As I got there it looked as though we were controlling the game after having corner after corner and creating a lot of chances and shortly after we took the lead after some neat work down the flank let Al Barnes in to the right hand side of the box and he slid the ball coolly under the on-rushing keeper. We continued to dominate the rest of the half but went in with just the one goal advantage, which from what I had seen was unfortunate!

Second half saw us attacking the rather large slope!! This let Wickham in to the game a bit more as they started to fire up long balls to their big number 9, fortunately for us, I think this is where our back four excels. It doesn't matter which two of our centre halves are playing, all will dominate most forwards in the air and in the second half Luke J and Chris did exactly that.

About half way through the second half we doubled our lead with Dan Head firing in from close range after the keeper parried an initial shot. The game then turned a bit ugly with one of the Wickham players getting sent off after some handbags and as a result, our play started to get a little sloppy in places. We brought on both Adam and Nigel who did well to stretch the Wickham back line and in truth we could have had a few more with a bit more luck and some better finishing. However a win is a win and it was good to progress though to the next round and bounce straight back from last week's defeat.

Man of the match was a one sided affair with Luke Johnson picking up 9 votes from a possible 14!

So far we have made an excellent start to the season and credit must go to everyone involved. Most importantly everyone gets along, team spirit is good and the banter is better. This is only likely to get better with the return of Russ back from the 1sts this week, especially if he turns up in the famous beige Colombo Mack that he was spotted in a few times last season!

Well done to all!