date - January 30th
venue - Kent county cricket ground
3 Chelsfield Old Boys vs Poverest 4
Well well, here we are again, another game against Poverest ,and another defeat 'were still better than them though' according to some of our players. This was more than playing against a team of mates, and one that had beaten us twice, it was a game we had to win regardless of previous issues due to our league position, with a win putting us level with them, with 3 games still in hand.
As far as team news was concerned there was a few changes. Even though Ross Sullivan caused them all sorts of problems with his pace in the last 2 meetings, he was on the bench again, and stuart moff, all be it suprisingly starting the last league game was ousted from the side, despite a solid performance on that occasion. However Luke Bennett his replacement for this game,is a great player on his day,and maybe deserved a start for his ronaldinho goal at training.Making up the numbers on the bench were the unfortunate dean wyatt and ultra unfortunate lee pullen.
The game kicked off in great anticipation, however after only 2 minutes it was Poverest playing all the nice football, running rings round COBS at times and making it look easy. COBS, just didnt get going at all, everyone looked sluggish and it took at least 20 minutes to put two passes together. This was really dissapointing and embarrasing to say the least. As expected, Poverest took the lead, a woeful header up into the sky from captain pete small was pounced upon by the poverest striker who did the rest of the work on his own, neatly scoring passed Wheatley in the COBS goal. 0-1This kicked Chelsfield into life a bit, and they finally started spraying the ball around, with some nice touched from the fishers and melluish, and some good darting runs from youth product morris. in fact it wasnt long until chelfield pulled it level, the ball falling at james fisher's feet, whos shot was saved, but the rebound fell nicely for brother jon, who appeared in frank lampard like fashion to bury it in the net.1-1
It was still however Poverest that looked the better team, Chelsfield, despite all the pre-match hype, just didnt look at the races, and from a needless corner, poverest scored at the near post, in the 6 yard box ! how can this keep happening? ! 1-2. COBS rallied though, and immediately won a penalty at the other end, which jon fisher cooly tucked away for his 9th goal of the season.2-2, somehow, despite poverest dominating the first 35 mins, chelsfield had pulled the scores level, and things got worse for poverest when nick morris scored one of the best goals sunday football could possibly produce ! a 30 yard plus screamer into the top corner, that everyone thought was gonna end up in maidstone. 3-2 COBS as the half time whistle blew, and we could go in at half time feeling lucky and extrmely satisfied with the score !
The 2nd half kicked off with chris constable immediately signalling a knee injury that had meant he was by in large ineffective during the game, so on 55 mins off he came for ross sullivan who joined fisher in attack. It wasn't long though until the lead got to COBS head, and on 65 mins a dire kick from brian wheatley went straight to the central midfield of poverest who was allowed to run 20 yards and pick off a shot, which came off the post and was headered into an empty new by a free poverest striker in the penalty area. Could the goals we concede get any worse. Jon Fisher and Jimmy Newt were playing far to apart during the game, and this allowed it to happen.Something we need to sort out, especially letting a free man in the penalty area head into an empty net. It was a shame on Wheatley who despite having a good game, and looking very comfortbale, let in 2 goals he should of done better on.3-3
Well here we were in that situation again, having a lead ,throwing it away, and drawing with 15/20 mins to go. Ofcourse we should guess what will happen next ! the reason we havnt drawn a match this season is because we bottle it whenever a team pulls it back, and end up losing. Exactly the same thing happened here. ANOTHER needless corner was given away, this time by bennett and the ball was floated in, somehow, the poverest striker, managed to outjump pete small on the goal line and header it in, absolute woeful goal to let in, truly crap ! 3-4
That was the way it stayed and despite some good efforts from duncan harwood, and some bad finishes from jon fisher and james fisher,aswell as a perfectly good goal in the 1st half from morris that was disallowed due to a needless foul by newton, COBS just couldnt get an equaliser. Theres 5 games to go ,and we could quite easily lose all 5 games, as win all 5 games, so we need to sort a few things out !
PLAYER RATINGS
Brian Wheatley ( good game, but should of done better on 2 of the goals ) 6
Pete Small (will be first to admit had a stinker ) 4
Duncan Harood (looked cool and composed as per usual,) 6
Shaun Higgins ( no real errors,playing well in general at the moment) 6
Luke Bennett (looked fairly solid and made some very important clearances) 6
(Dean Wyatt) 78 (not enough time, had one effort)
Simon Melluish ( in and out of game, nice touches,and a great effort on goal) 6
Jon Fisher ( 2 goals, and some great touches,positioning questionable at times) 7
James Newton (needless foul prevented us scoring, out of position at times ) 5
Nick morris (gets a 7 for goal of the season alone,played ok though) 7
Chris Constable (struggled to get into game, picked up injury, subbed at half time) 6
(Ross Sullivan) 60 (2 good runs, didnt touch the ball though apart from that)
James Fisher (played ok, although missed a sitter towards the end) 6
MOM - Nick Morris- no one was outstanding, the only thing that was, was nick morris's amazing goal
MOM Archive
Midway 1-2 N/A
Kings Park Rangers 2-1 .N/A
Oct 3rd - vs Total - Shaun Higgins 1-0
Oct 10th - vs Valley Valiants - Jon Fisher 3-1
Oct 17th - vs Poverest - Lee Pullen 1-2
Oct 24th - vs Sydenham - Brian Wheatley 2-0
Nov 1st - vs Poverest - Ross Sullivan 2-6
Nov 7th - vs Top jeesh - Nick Morris 0-1
Nov 14th - vs Cudham - Ross Sullivan/Nick Morris 5-1
Nov 21st - vs Midfield - Brian Wheatley/Duncan Harwood 0-6
Nov 28th - vs Eden Park - Chris Constable 2-3
Dec 5th - vs Valley Valiants - Dean Wyatt 4-6
Dec 12th - vs Total - Si Melluish 3-1
Jan 16th - vs Sydenham - Duncan Harwood 3-0
Jan 30th - vs Poverest - Nick Morris 3-4
Im keeping a record of all the player scores this season,kinda like our own opta index ! and this will have a bearing on the MOST CONSISTENT PLAYER award. I won't let everyone know what everyone's scores are, as that isn't fair as some players have missed game's etc., but ill keep u posted on who's got the highest Aggregate score of season so far.at the moment Jon Fisher has 85 points and Brian Wheatley has 84 points, aswell as Nick Morris with Shaun Higgins on 83, Duncan Harwood on 82
COBS GOLDEN BOOT
Jon Fisher 9 (4 pens)
Nick Morris 7
Chris Constable 4
Dean Wyatt 4
Ross Sullivan 2
James Fisher 2
Si Melluish 1
Shaun Higgins 1
James Newton 1
