Team: Tom, Rob, Jack, James (captain), Conall, Liam, Billy, Luke, Alex, Lee,
Lewis, Joe, Oscar
 
With the weekend starting with Bonfire Night on the Saturday we were all
expecting fireworks of our own today on the pitch away against Crawley United.
It never quite came to that but a 4-0 win in the Cup was a really good result
given some inconsistent form so far this season.

 
With Tom on goal-keeping duties today as Sam was showing off his cricketing
prowess elsewhere (yes, I know it’s November and we’ve just had Halloween and
Bonfire Night and the London to Brighton road race was taking place as we
played!) we already had a slight change to our line-up. With less than 5 minutes
gone Billy fell awkwardly and was replaced by Oscar which changed our set-up
once again.
 
An indifferent first 30 minutes had been in danger of gradually petering out to
Half Time - even though they had hit the crossbar directly from a corner - when
Lee got on the end of a ball from Conall and thumped it home to take us 1-0 up.
 
Seven minutes into the second half Liam was perfectly placed wide on the
right-hane side of the penalty area to coolly stroke the ball home after
something approaching a goal mouth scramble. This should have been sufficient to
settle any nerves and calm things down but we still failed to dominate the game
against a side who weren’t really offering much by way of attacking ability.
 
Joe came on as substitute for Liam a short while later and in a passage of play
that resembled Liam’s own goal, but this time with the ball falling to Joe out
wide on the left-hand side of the penalty area, crashed home our third goal
after some broken play, to put us firmly in control at 3-0. Just 5 minutes later
Joe got in on the act again this time running straight at their defence before
slotting home his second of the morning. This made the result 4-0 and put us
through to the next round, although the ref briefly looked as if he was going to
ignore John flagging for one of theirs to be off-side and allow a distinctly
dodgy looking goal to stand. After a brief chat on the touchline everything got
sorted and the 4-0 result stood.
 
Well played boys - and thanks to John for running the line!
 
Steve Trigg