This season's Kent Cup adventure lasted only one game as we came up against a side who have reasonably successful in this competition in recent seasons. A early meeting time of 9.00 am tested one or two members of the squad,as it seemed they may have been celebrating the previous day's sporting results a bit too well.
Our driver, with his trademark arrogance, set off with only a vague idea of our destination, a situation not helped by one of the management team leaving the e-mailed directions in his car at The Camden.
Fortunately, the other two passengers in the car were able to rescue the situation & got us within striking distance of their pitch.
A quick phone call to Luke Hattle snr. & the promise of a local 'stunner' (I think he must have imagined her because we never saw her) roused the driver sufficiently for us to find the pitch.
Luke Smith was taken by the Reserves & so we started with the same back four as last week. Nat came into midfield & Rishi started up front. The game started slowly,but we gradually got into our stride & began to dictate the pattern of play.But,unfortunately,we again failed to turn our dominance into goals.
Our best chance fell to Rob but he missed his kick when well placed.We must give credit to the opposition who were defending stoutly & they began to launch some attacks of their own.Having missed one good chance they took the lead with a well worked move that left one of their forwards through on goal & he finished well. This came in their best spell of the half, but it must be said that overall possession must have been 70/30 in our favour.
At half time it was stressed that although we were unlucky to be behind,we needed to work harder when they were in possession & to take more care with our passing & crossing around their box. We began the second half well & did create chances, one decent move down the right found Lewis free at the far post but he shot straight at the keeper. The equalizer came via a flukey chip from Matt that fooled their 'keeper & everyone else by dropping under the bar & in the net.We continued to press but conceded a second in disappointing fashion.We had won a free kick in their half & pushed players into their box, but they won the first ball & broke swiftly. A decent low cross into our box, left an easy finish & gave us a harsh lesson in simple effective football.
This was heavy blow to our confidence & in truth they finished the game as the better side,scoring again & had it not been for some fine goalkeeping from James they could have scored two or three times more as we pushed on.
It is never nice to lose & although they proved to be a capable side,our performance for an hour shows we were good enough to get a better result. This is the first time any side has finished the game stronger than us,so the lesson to be learned is to punish teams when we are on top & put the game beyond them. It's back to a league game next week,three points will cheer us all up.
Team:
J.Ramskill,
T.Lowe,
L.Hattle
N.Sargent,
N. Edwards,
M.Rice-Tucker,
N.Twiggs,
R.Stanton.
L.West,
R.Patel,
R.Hendley,
Sub:
N.Forward, for T.Lowe
R.Taylor for L.West
D.Fitzgerald (d.n.p.)