After Saturday’s disappointing defeat tonight’s match gave us the opportunity to make amends. The squad was bolstered with the availability of Ben Brooker, Mark Wood and Chris Mearing and therefore we fully expected to get something out of the game. Once again the condition of the pitch at Woodside was not too different to the allotments down the road. The bumpy surface was complemented by a strong wind, making playing conditions extremely difficult for Reserve team football.
With the wind behind them Langton put the re-organised Pembury defence under a lot of pressure in the first half. Langton took the lead after 5 minutes when a well struck shot from 25 yards out flew past Lee, hitting the under side of the bar, before nestling in the back of the net. Langton continued to dominate but were either denied by Lee in goal or failed to hit the target. Mid-way through the half we began to retain possession and push them back towards their goal. Even though we didn’t create any chances in this period, at least it stemmed the onslaught towards our goal. This good work was undone when a blocked pass led to them breaking quickly and scoring a second after 25 minutes. This very nearly became three before half-time when Luke Hattle made a great last ditch clearance, following a mistake from Steve Waterman.
At half-time James Austin and Chris Mearing were introduced and with the wind behind us we began to put them under some pressure. Another fine save from Lee preceded our 1st goal. A Langton goal kick was headed back into their half by Steve, where Chris helped it over their defence for Ben Brooker to run onto and finish. Langton were now looking nervous and the excellent Marc Wood continued to drive the Reserves forward. Another great move saw Ben in for another one-on-one, unfortunately although he slotted the ball past the keeper, the Langton centre-back didn’t give it up and hooked the ball off the line. Then Chris hit a cracking shot from the edge of the box which just curled over the bar. More good movement and passing down our left resulted in a great cross finding Matt Rice-Tucker unmarked at the back post inside the 6 yard box. With the crowd ready to celebrate an equaliser Matt somehow managed to miss the ball completely. Rice-Tucker senior watching from the sidelines remarked that in his heyday he would have buried that chance! Sargey kindly pointed out that he wouldn’t have been seen that far advanced. After this Langton sent over a couple of dangerous crosses and corners, which we did well to deal with on each occasion. With the game drawing to a close Pembury launched one last attack. Once again we worked a great opening down our left and James made a great connection to send over his cross. What followed was little short of comical. The cross was a little too close to the keeper, who dived to block it. Then he either tripped up or the ball hit an almighty divot, as it bounced over his head and into the net. There was just enough time to kick off, before the referee blew for full time.
A good result against a side who had a number of decent players and it was particularly pleasing that we didn’t give up when going 2 goals down.
Team:
L.Thomson
L.Hattle
S.Waterman
I.Crouch
L.Drury
M.Rice-Tucker
K.Waterman
M.Wood
R.Cornish
B.Brooker
M.Wyles
Subs:
J.Austin (for L.Drury)
C.Mearing (for K.Waterman)
T.Bowyer (for S.Waterman)