Crowborough Athletic 4 v 5 Pembury Sun Reserves
Although playing a team from a division below us we knew this was going to be a tough game, and stressed the importance of a good start, which we achieved to great affect. The first goal game after 9 minutes, when a ball played forward by Sammy was headed on by Pavel, and from the left hand edge of the area Kevin finished superbly into the bottom right hand corner of the net. I was really pleased to see that we kept the pressure up and after breaking from the his centre half position Joe Campbell kept going forward and the ball broke to him on the 18 yard line from were he buried the ball into the corner of the net with the outside of his right foot, a finish any striker would be proud of. The 3rd goal game swiftly after when Kevin tried his luck from 20 yards. and although not his best effort, the ball somehow squeezed through the keepers hands.
3-0 after 20 minutes, and we were looking set to push on and finish the game off, but unfortunately our good start seemed to have the opposite effect on us and our level of play dipped dramatically for the next 15 minutes, letting a fairly youthful, and quick Crowborough side into the game. We were definitely struggling with the pace of their attack and they were clever enough to realise this and put a lot of long balls over the top for their forwards to run onto, which we were just not dealing with. From one of those breaks Matt had to come out and make a great save near the edge of the area ,but as the play then developed the ball broke to their left winger who floated over a cross/shot which unfortunately evaded Matt and ended up into the net.
This certainly lifted them and they put us under a lot pressure until about 5 minutes before half-time when we started making a few tackles again and being a bit more composed on the ball. From a good move down the right the ball ended up in their 6 yard box, and after two or three stabs by various players Pavel managed to apply the finishing touch to make it 4-1 at half-time.
During the interval we stressed about their pace and dealing better with the long ball over the top and ensuring we started quickly. Unfortunately, Crowborough had obviously had the same talk and came at us very fast straight from the kick-off and within 6 minutes of the re-start they had scored two goals and brought the score back to 4-3, game on!
It looked like Kevin had calmed many nerves in the 65th minute when he scored a very good solo goal, but their linesman had obviously seen somebody on the pitch that nobody else had seen, and flagged for a mysterious offside. Since the start of the second half we had been panicky in possession of the ball and so to be honest it was against the run of play in the 69th minute when Kevin was played through on goal again and calmly put it wide of the advancing keeper to make it 5-3 and get himself a well deserved hat-trick.
Unfortunately with only one substitute, and a couple of players either carrying knocks or too much beer from Saturday night, we were not in a great position to make decisive changes. The game was getting stretched now and their right winger was causing us lots of problems with his pace and directness. On one such run he went past Rox and as Ollie came across to cover he was a little in the challenge and took the player out, the ref rightly pointing to the spot which they finished well to make it 5-4.
They were really pumped up at this stage and we could easily have folded under pressure but to our credit we started to get some snap back into our passes, as well as some tackles and we saw out the final 15 minutes without to many problems.
Crowborough were a good, quick Division 5 side, and on another day could easily have put us out but I was really pleased that we kept on trying to play our brand of passing football, even through the periods of the game when we were struggling, and passes were going astray. Well done for Kevin on his all round performance and for getting the first of what I hope, will be many hat-tricks this year and finally, a huge thanks to Lewis for coming out at short notice and helping us out, much appreciated.
Team:
Matt Bolton
James Roxborough
Sammy Balcombe
Ollie Bryant
Joe Campbell
Pavel
Shawn Bent
Tom Gent
Tom Lowe
Kevin Smith
Mark Wyles
Sub:
Lewis Drury
