Squad:

 
Peter E
Paul
Kevin
Grant
Martin
Ian
George
Colin
Richie
Jim
Gordon

I don’t know what it is with this opposition, our third time facing them and our third straight defeat, we did nearly everything right, the one thing we got wrong was coming second in this contest. Ultimately the points were lost rather than won, no doubt the victors will feel they deserved the win but from our point of view we felt hard done by.

A bright and energetic start saw us score within the first minute, a superb breakaway from George allowed him to draw out the visiting central defender before slipping a well timed pass through to Martin who without breaking stride passed the ball past the despairing keeper, it looked easy but was far from it, some credit for this must go to Gordon, I’m convinced his pre match stretching routine got us prepared for action.

We continued to dominate, Ian, Grant and Kevin were linking up well, Martin and George were causing problems for the away defence as the Ethelbert keeper made a couple of scrambling saves. If we could have only got that second goal, our opponents have a strong forward line and equalised mid way through the half, we lost possession high up the pitch, a long ball found its target, was well controlled and a neat turn and finish levelled up the score.

Paul unfortunately had to be replaced at half-time as his troublesome ankle flared up, he had done really well against one of the better central attackers with a strong and disciplined defensive display.

It’s still a bit of a mystery just how we didn’t find the net in the second half, we were awarded numerous free kicks up and around the penalty area but as often with the current rules around the taking of what should be an advantage we were constantly thwarted. To make matters worse a quickly taken kick for a running offence saw a well struck effort put us behind.

Peter in the home goal was now becoming a spectator as we camped ourselves into the Wanderers half, space was at a premium as we kept patient to make our chances. A strong effort from Richie was well saved but George was the closest as he engineered a rare bit of space, his careful placement was though kept out by the foot of the post; disappointingly from our point of view rebounding out to safety.

Despite the result our performance was good, being critical maybe we need to communicate a bit better, we did have control for the majority of the encounter and when we were forced back we covered well, on another day the result could have been different but thats football. It’s a funny old game! 

Thanks to Chris Smith for refereeing to his usual high standard, unusually no penalties awarded for combined running offences albeit mighty close for both sides.