Match Report

Young Vets avoid third successive defeat by coming back from 3 goal deficit!

GK - Gary Rosslee, 7.
Pulled off 3 good saves in the first half to keep the game in sight for the OBG’s.

LB – Mark Friend, 7
Swapped egg chasing for chasing shadows this weekend!

CB – Chris Rawley, 8.
Shackled the very vertical Charlton centre forward expertly and limited his opportunities to a real minimum. Kept Rosslee on his toes with a couple of showboating back passes that to the untrained eye looked a lot like sliced clearances!

CB – Matt Wright, 7.
Moved into centre back today to cope with the height advantage that Charlton Rangers possessed over the Guild, did a decent enough job. Will be missed next week when he is rescuing cats from trees!

RB – Brett Cheesman, 6.
Subbed on 60 minutes and never reappeared, done a stone in weight courtesy of the new ‘Bobby Sands’ diet!

LM – Ben Clunge, 4.
Didn’t fall over today and given how unstable the pitch was in areas I nearly scored him a 5 but decided against it. Should have done better with his goal line clearance that fell kindly to an unmarked Charlton Rangers player in the penalty box!

CM- Dean Wyatt, 6.
Not as influential as normal, possibly hampered by his fan club watching on the touchlines? Lost his man too many times from corners.

CM – Dean Murphy 8.
Worked his socks off for 90 minutes and was involved in 2 of the 3 Farnborough goals. His free kick set up St John for his second of the match and was awarded a penalty with 15 left on the clock after the referee somehow managed to spot the infringement through a very congested penalty area (much to the visitor’s dismay!)

RM – Neil Pearce, 6.
Out of sorts based on some of his previous performances this season.

CF – Si Davies, 6.
Keeper pulled off a smart save from one of his efforts when he was played through on goal although in his defence half of him was expecting the whistle to blow for offside!

CF- Barry Grainger, 6.
Should have tucked away a one-on-one chance in the first half to reduce the deficit at 0-2 down. Neatly set up St John for his opener to start the Farnborough come back.

Subs,

Jim St. John, 8.
Eyebrows were raised when the management opted to start him as sub. Silenced the doubters by and chipping in with 2 second half goals. One a well taken goal set up by Grainger and the second a real poachers effort after some hesitation in the Charlton six yard box from an OBG free kick. Bottled the chance to net a hat trick when he avoided taking the penalty awarded late into the game.


Pete Harvey, 6.
Involved in Farnbrough’s opening goal as he collected the ball out wide left and dummied his man before sliding in Barry (Wheyyyyyyyy) who ultimately teed up St. John.

Matt Ellis, 6.
Scored the vital penalty to level the scores at 3-3 after Murphy was alleged to have been brought down in the box.


Paul Tanton, 5.
Thankfully for him too little time on the pitch to impress brought on to replace the injured Si Davies with 5 minutes to go, I think fatherhood is taking its toll!


Match summary.

So after 2 consecutive defeats we finally stopped the rot and managed to evade an unwanted record of 3 defeats on the bounce. Looking back at historic results against Charlton Rangers we have actually taken more points (if we were in a real league format) than they have taken from us so going into this match perhaps we should not of given them as much respect as we gave them, sure they humbled us 5-1 last season at their place but we have run out comfortable winners against them in many of our past encounters. The game was played on the smaller boggier top pitch that like just like the current Mrs Rosslee (in name only) needed some extra prodding and TLC around the wet patches!

So armed with forks, spikes and shovels (or is it called it a spade?) several of the home team did their best Alan Titchmarsh impressions to appease ref Andy Gable and allow the game to go ahead. Charlton did pressure us more than we did in the first half and scored 2 scrappy goals to go in at half time 0-2 to the good. They added a 3rd goal but to our credit we kept fighting and managed to peg the game back to 3-3. We face them again in a fortnight’s time at their place in Chislehurst where the surface will be in much better condition than today’s pitch so hopefully it will be an encounter for the purist. Well done boys today for digging deep and showing resilience, let’s face it we were never going to be as bad as last week debacle were we?

Next week is Crofton Albion at Home however with the top pitch likely to be unplayable as it stands the management are looking into potentially swapping the game to an all-weather pitch at one of the nearby schools so I’d better stock up on extra Jelly Babies and dust off that bag of Werthers Original my granddad gave me all those years ago “that first creamy taste was uncommonly good"

MOM was joint 4 ways today with Rawley, Murphy, Friend and St John all picking up 3 votes each!