Following from last week’s defeat to Hayden in the cup, we travel away to Thamesmead. Once again, we are a bit limited with players squad wise, but we still have the quality to play well and get a good result regardless of that. The pitch itself was very boggy especially in the middle of the pitch, making it harder to play in that area, meaning we had to get the ball wide to play how we want to play. That was what we did especially in the first half as we got the ball wide and looked to find either Danny, Ciaran, Michael or Ted in behind their defence. We did that a couple of times with Jake and Danny both getting shots off at the keeper, yet we were unable to put those chances into the back of the net. Ciaran had a couple as well that he was unable to finish. But we did find the opening goal, scoring from Ciaran’s corner and a good near post flick from George. Unfortunately, our lead didn’t last long as they got in behind our defence and a ball across the box was put in by their striker to equalise. We then had a few chances of our own as Ted found himself in a couple of 1-on-1s yet didn’t hit the target on either. But we did find our lead again as Michael stopped the ball from being shepherd out by the keeper and curled the ball into the far corner for 2-1.

During the half time break, we knew we could increase our lead if we could take our chances. As we got underway in the second half, we carried on where we left off. Creating chances but couldn’t seem to put them away, as Ciaran hit the post, and we missed a few more 1-on-1’s. But we did manage to extend our lead as the ball fell to Danny in the box who’s shot just went past the keeper. But our inability to consistently finish our chances led to them making it 3-2 with a decent strike from the edge of the box. After a solid defensive display for the remaining 10 minutes and a few scuffles off the ball as the game got very edgy, we got our first win of the year. Good all round game, but we go again next week against Royal Greenwich Borough.

Match report by Ciaran Larkin