Match Report

A poor pitch, a poor performance, against a poor team.

The sun shone continually in our eyes for the first half. Our defenders floundered for the first 15 minutes in an error strewn start, myself getting it all wrong with Rod in goal saving at my feet, Todd beaten a couple of times as the ball popped up out of the sun, and Steve off balance and struggling as Colin nips it off his toes for the forward to dispatch into the bottom left for 1-0.

Straight from kick off Ben goes down the wing and Djan runs into the area for the Elite defender to miscue, Djan pounces and in it goes for 1-1.

A rubbish start and more to follow, Rod saving us well to dispatch a shot away for a corner, only for the ball to be lofted into the air and with two defenders, one goalkeeper and player on the line, the ball still came off the back of the head of the forward and in…..2-1 down.

We then started to play, with move of the game from a punt into the tramlines by me, Simon to run towards the corner flag, back to Antony with close control. Meanwhile Colin had surged down the line so that Antony could calmly back heel a ball perfectly into the path of Colin, he immediately crossed a curling ball into the perfect position for an onrushing Mark (at right back!) to meet inside the six yard box, only to see his header just tipped on to the crossbar. A great move.

Antony too hit the crossbar with a viscous shot from outside the box, but from nowhere a third goal went against us, when on a break the forwards supposedly broke the offside trap and notched again, the sun was very strong, so I don’t blame the lino entirely (only a bit!).

At half time we felt that with hard work we could still get something out of this game. We knew they were poor, but we were worse. How we let three in against this lot in 45 minutes compared with the week before against a top of the table side it is anyone''s guess, still we started brightly, and put a lot of pressure on the Elite defence. There was also a lot of pressure on the Elite forwards too as both Todd and myself got booked in frustration, Antony was doing his bit too!

Richard Davis was now producing some of the skill and determination that we new he was capable of in centre midfield, and Edd decided that as we had no goals to show for this pressure he would make a double substitution with 20 minutes to go. Off came a very tired Mark Doyle, on came the lively Joe Lipton, and off came Steve Viner (last week''s MOM) for a debut from the youngster Darren!!

Within a couple of minutes we had scored, when a great interception from Darren in midfield, led to a pass across the edge of the area for Antony (MOM) to rifle with control and precision into the bottom left corner. 3-2 and we had an outside chance of salvaging something. It was all too little, too late, as the time was flying by and with a minute to go I took a quick free kick into the path of a sprinting Darren, who managed to get a first time shot away that was goal bound but was blocked by the defender. As the resultant corner came in, and with 10 players pushing for an equaliser, the referee blew his whistle and it was all over. A disappointing end to a poor performance. No heroes.

Let’s have a cup run, instead! Let’s show the Second team eh!?!? Who wants to be a hero?