After last week’s cup victory our attention returned to the league, where we entertained a Blackham side defending a 100% league record. In stark contrast to our return of no points from our opening three games.
Once again we were forced to make a number of changes from last week’s team, but were fortunate to gain from the first team’s inability to put out a team. We started the game well and went ahead after only two minutes. A poor goal kick was headed back to his own goal by a Blackham midfielder, where Mark Wyles was waiting. Mark calmly let the ball run on, before lobbing the ball over the advancing keeper. Rather than rest on this we continued to dominate possession and the opposition must have regretted their decision in only turning up 25 minutes before the game. Our second came following good work form Jamie Bush, who presented Mark with a simple tap in to extend our lead. Clearly Mark doesn’t want to score easy goals from inside the six yard box, as his first touch was horrendous. Fortunately the defender’s clearance fell to Luke Hattle and he drilled the ball home from ten yards. The half continued with us looking like the side defending the unbeaten record, not them.
At half time there was very little to say other than that the next goal would be very important. One for us and the second half would be a stroll. One for them and it would be tricky.
Unfortunately for us a poor refereeing decision resulted in Blackham reducing our advantage inside the first five minutes. The opposition centre forward was flagged offside, but finished anyway. To everyone’s amazement the referee allowed the goal to stand and didn’t even consult our linesman. The next twenty minutes were very even, before we started to give the ball away too cheaply. This left us on the back foot for the remaining twenty minutes. With five minutes to go Blackham thought they had equalised, when their centre forward smartly rolled his marker, before dispatching the ball past Garry. Luckily for us the referee evened up the earlier decision by disallowing the goal for a foul on our defender. The centre forward couldn’t keep his mouth shut and was booked for arguing. Whilst walking away he then decided to call the referee a f***ing cheat. Much to our amusement the referee called the player back to him and calmly asked his name, having just noted it down thirty seconds earlier. The resultant red card led the watching crowd to question how stupid you have to be to get a red card in the Tonbridge League. Particularly when it’s two yellows. Kevin Waterman watching because he was serving a one week ban for a sending off (two yellow cards in quick succession I believe) just kept his head down. The rest of the game went by with very little incident.
A good performance for an hour, but it was worrying that we conceded possession so cheaply in the last half hour. Mark Wyles was excellent up front, adding another great strike to last week’s and generally leading the line really well. At the back we were very strong, but particular praise has to be given to Nick Edwards, who put in his most accomplished performance to date.
Team:
G.Knight
L.Drury
M.Wood
G.Hughes
N.Edwards
L.Hattle
T.Gent
B.Turner
J.Bush
L.Gent
M.Wyles
Subs:
T.Bowyer (for T.Gent)
C.White (for J.Bush)
S.Waterman (DNP)