With the first team match being called off the previous afternoon, we were able to bolster the side with the inclusion of Alan Evans.
Things didn’t start too well with the referee turning up late, because he forgot it was a cup game and therefore an early kick off. The pitch was horrendous and the wind was blowing straight down the pitch. We went against the elements in the first half and were fairly comfortable dealing with the Blackham attacks. However mid way through the half we failed to defend a corner and found ourselves one nil down. This quickly became two, as we began to lose our shape and composure. To the team’s credit we cleared our heads and began to launch some decent counter attacks. We were having particular joy down our right, where Jamie unlucky to make way for Alan up front, was linking with our front two. Five minutes before half time, Alan latched on to a through ball missed by their strangely nick named defender “Mad Dog”. Alan was then brought down in the box and dispatched the penalty himself. Steve then came on for the injured Dean and had an immediate impact when he released James down our left. James’ cross was met by Alan and Mark finished from on the line.
Going in at half time level, with the elements in our favour was better than we had expected. However we quickly gave up parity, when an inopportune slip by Lewis let in their centre forward and he made no mistake. We then proceeded to play some of our best football and were quickly level when an excellent free-kick from Garry was flicked on by Matt. Steve had lost his marker and knocked the ball past the keeper, where the onrushing James was on hand to equalise. We continued to dominate and a long ball from Kevin left Alan one on one with the keeper, in a race to see who could reach the ball first. Alan won and then proceeded to knock the ball into an empty net. At this point “Mad Dog” pulled up lame and offered to go up front, as Blackham had used their only substitute. Having reflected on his performance to date, his team mates decided their cause would be best served if he took a breather! We then used the ball really well against ten men and created at least half a dozen excellent chances to put the game out of sight. Unfortunately each time we failed to show the required composure in front of goal. This came back to bite us when in the last minute we failed to deal with a counter attack and the excellent Blackham centre forward scored from close range.
In extra time Blackham magically conjured up another sub and so were up to the full complement of eleven players. To be honest there was only likely to be one winner in extra time and it wasn’t us. With the light fading fast, Blackham broke away and scored the winner.
All in all a disappointing result, as we dug ourselves into a hole, got out of it, put ourselves back in it, got back out of it, only to fail to kill the game off in the 90 minutes.
Team:
A.Whittaker
Lewis Drury
K.Waterman
G.Knight
C.White
J.Bush
M.Edwards
D.Jacquin
J.Austin
A.Evans
M.Wyles
Subs:
S.Waterman
L.Hattle