Match Report

An interesting gauge as to where we are in comparison to last year. Last year we drew an ill-tempered game 3-3 and lost at home 3-1 if memory serves me right. In this encounter we played with excellent spirit and determination, helped by a similar attitude from Tudor and a referee willing to play advantage when at all possible.

We came out winners 2-1, both teams having good chances to score at least 3 or 4 more.

Antony Dine (MOM) wants me to put in this report about poise and power, well yes the first goal had all of that and more…..

Mark Doyle at right back pushed the ball hard down the line to Joe Lipton, Joe drove at the midfield player and played in Paul Burford, who was making an excellent diagonal run to win the ball just in front of the defender. He then got further down the line and crossed a powerful ball into the danger area for Djan Akwasi to take with great poise and power and volley into the middle of the goal to put us 1-0 up. (Those of you wondering, Antony was watching from far on the left wing!).

As I said before both teams could have scored more, particularly in the first half. Geof saving and cutting down the angles on 2 or 3 occasions. Also a great team effort nearly produced a goal from the left side, Peter Morton at left back running hard into a central area with the ball, then cutting it out wide to Antony, who put in a great pass to Simon Davies who then spectacularly hit the woodwork.

In the second half it was more of the same, with some resolute defending by Steve Viner and myself, and with Jay Blay spoiling things in midfield we were on top. A goal that was bundled over the line from 6 yards after Geof was unable to get two hands on a cross meant that at 1-1 we were heading for extra time. However Ben Tomkins injected some more pace upfront for Simon, and it was between Ben and Joe to get a cross over and another trade mark toe poke in from Paul Burford to get us through to the next round.

Many thanks to Micheal Seymour in an excellent display of running the line and to Paul Edwards who Edd was unable to get on. However with this team spirit and the knowledge of having players around capable of coming on, I felt the players involved on the pitch stepped up a gear in this game and again it has made it hard for Edd to pick a team for this week.

WINNERS!