Squad

Lawrence
Jim
Gordon
Rob
Michael
Les
George
Toony

Suffering a number of injuries and absences we took on a very strong and competitive Ashford team, it is our fourth match against them and we managed to secure our first victory after two draws and a defeat.

Ashford started well and we conceded an early free kick which we defended well and gradually made a few chances of our own.  Just as we seemed to be getting the upper hand we went a goal down. The away team were very good at turning us and a breakaway resulted in us being outnumbered and although Lawrence made a great save for the initial effort he could do nothing to prevent the first goal as the rebound fell kindly to the Ashford forward.

Thankfully this didn’t knock us out of our stride and we kept possession well and when we did lose the ball we harried and chased the opposition in to making mistakes.

The equaliser arrived just before half time with George finishing well as we again pressed forcing the away team on to the back foot.

Michael very nearly gave us the lead when he was unlucky not to score after some great work from Les and George.

There was just enough time for Lawrence to make a fine save as the whistle blew to maintain parity at the break.

During the break we talked about making a fast start to the second half and it couldn’t have worked better. The pattern of our play was to make it difficult for them to get out marking well and keeping them under pressure, well Gordon did this superbly winning possession and then purposefully moving forward to hit a fine strike and give us the lead for the first time in the match.

We were now playing with control and assurance again keeping the ball and closing down really well as a team, but you can never rule out this Ashford team when again an overload enabled them to equalise with a crisp effort that went in off the post.  Again no panic as we kept to the plan keeping the ball, on one occasion we nearly scored with every team member involved but alas we were kept at bay.  However we were not to be denied though with Rob expertly getting the winner by tricking the keeper to chip in after some excellent work from George.

We held out for a very enjoyable and deserved three points against one of the better teams in the league. A very good and probably our best all round team performance of the season.

The match although highly competitive was played in a very good spirit and expertly refereed by Rob Rae.