Report

A game of two halves is an often used cliche in football - but there is no other way to describe this result. Anyone not at the match will look at the result and, quite rightly, would presume we were well and truly pummelled by a team from the league above. But for 45 minutes we were superb and more than matched Cheam Village Warriors.
The game didn't start in the best of ways, with a hopeful cross evading Moody and nestling into the bottom corner. But as soon as we went behind, the whole team stepped up a gear. The midfield three, with Brad superb at marshalling everything, dominated and forced Cheam to change their tactics. All around the park we hassled and harried, which lead to our equaliser - three different players chased down the opposition, before the gaffer threaded the ball through to Kieran. His first effort was scrambled off the line, but he made no mistake in smashing the ball in. We should have gone into the break ahead after the ref somehow didn't award a penalty after the gaffer was clipped in the box.
Then there was the second half. Again, they scored early on - but this time there was no reaction. Half the team stopped working and were quite happy to see us humiliated by 7 for the second time this season. Some of their goals were a comedy of errors, and the fact they stuck two lumps up top in the second half and still scored 6 shows how we fell apart.
We wouldn't have won the county cup, but we certainly should have got a scalp here today. Let's think about the first 45 minutes and getting fit enough to carry that over for 90 minutes.