| In football, you need a
little bit of luck to win trophies and, despite the emphatic scoreline
in this Final, Ashford Town could certainly feel that luck was something
they lacked on the day. The bounce of the ball always seemed to
favour Cheam, although even the most blinkered of Middlesaxons would
have to concede that they were very worthy winners.
It could, however, have been so very
different. Backed by a large and loud contingent of travelling
Tangerines, Mick Tilt's side set about their task with gusto, with Jamie
Tilt having a shot saved in the opening seconds. The Sports side
quickly found their rhythm though and forced a good double save from
Adam Worley, who was powerless to prevent Cheam's first goal, which was
a well-taken, fifth minute strike.
Two minutes later Ashford went
agonisingly close to equalising, when young Tilt found himself
one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but cannoned a fierce shot off the far
post. Tilt had two further opportunities, one of which forced a
save. while Keji Adeniyi-Olanade also came close to scoring.
However, Cheam then scored twice in three minutes with both goals coming
from free-kicks that were just too good for Worley to stop. The
third, in particular, was celebrated exuberantly by the Sports manager,
who seemed to want his players to mimic the Premiership, whose corporate
logo adorned their shirts. Indeed, the rolling along the ground
that Cheam seemed to adopt at every strong challenge would have been
more appropriate at Stanford Bridge than Cobham...
For all their histrionics, Cheam were an
excellent team but they benefited from a stroke of luck in the 24th
minute, when Worley made a good save, only to see the rebound fall
directly to a Sports striker, who duly scored. Although Ashford
had a chance of their own, Sports were again a little fortunate when a
stoppage time corner bobbled its way across goal and into the net.
Jamie Carr took over in goal for the second
period and, like all of his team-mates, showed great tenacity. The
second half was much more positive, with David Nathan-Marsh defending
doggedly. However, Cheam continued to press and might have added
more goals to their tally than their single second-half strike, which
occurred when Ashford committed too many players forward at a corner and
Sports hit them with a fluid and pacy counter-attack.
Despite this heavy defeat, Ashford can take
great pride in reaching the Final of the Bill Nash Cup - not many of the
500+ sides in the Surrey Youth League will reach a game of this nature.
Squad: Adam Worley, Anthony
Dent, David Nathan-Marsh, Keji Adeniyi-Olanade, Temilulowa Oyenekan,
Bradley Jones, James Tilt, Jamie Carr, Patrick Higham-Wiles, Joseph
Costello
After the match we spoke to Jamie Tilt. The interview can be downloaded via
this link or played as a streaming MP3 file using the
built-in player, above. |
Wednesday, 08 February 2012
