Scorers: Kenga, Spencer.
Another week, another win. Wow. 2 on the spin – I am getting giddy. We travelled west to Acton, to find BB Eagles Ground essentially a building site. The Oppo are having extensive work done to their facilities, so had no toilets, no showers and no electricity – but more on that later!
While waiting for us to arrive, the Gaffer overheard the oppo discussing how they were going to roll us over with little effort – rubbish goal difference, 0 points. He pointed this out to us which properly gave us the hump, so much so that we flew out of the traps. The pitch we were on was very narrow, but we were still managing to find the space in behind the fullbacks, and Kier-on and Elion were causing real problems.
BB Eagles are a strong, physical side, but we generally coped well with most things that they threw at us – anything that the defensive ‘box’ of Woots, Wilko, Skips and Egan did not gobble up, was claimed smartly by Stimpy in net.
We took the lead on the half hour when a dangerous ball into the box by Kier-on was half cleared out to Egan who swung a beauty into Elion who brought ball down, had a shot blocked by the defender but was able to swivel and turn to bang home.
At halftime, we spoke about keeping the momentum up, and making sure that we do not let them back into the game. We continued to pose them problems, as they never really got to grips with our attacking quartet. In the hour mark Simmo and Claude entered the fray, and the change almost immediately paid dividends – a corner was swung to the near post and Claude connected with it, but it was blocked on the liner by a defender. The loose ball then fell to Claude again who hit a shot against the post, but the loose ball fell to him yet and again, and this time he forced a save out of the keeper who could only parry it into the path of Tom who rifled it home on the line. 2-0 and sitting pretty.
We had several chances to kill the game off, but I think it is fair to say we made the wrong choices – I know all strikers want to score, but the greediness shown by some was shocking – still I guess that is why Strikers are Strikers! With minutes to go, we became a bit sloppy, and it was less comfortable than it needed to have been, but Stimpy was outstanding and literally held everything thrown at him. We then traipsed back to the changing rooms to collect our things, and return to the home conforts of the racecourse for food, booze and showers – oh the simple things, eh?
So a first win of the season in the league, and the second on the bounce for us. 6 goals scored and 2 clean sheets. We should now have some confidence and belief that we can compete in this division, and with 4 teams now on 3 points, a win against second bottom HSBC next week should see us leap up to midtable. Let’s make sure we are up for it and carry our form from this week into it.
MOTM – Egan – was the mortar in the ‘wall of orange’.
Team – C Simpson, Nugent, Fabb, McLoughlin (I Simpson), Egan, Wootten, Wilkinson, O’Leary, Morris (Mbelo), Kenga, Spencer.
