Chessington & Hook United 2 vs 8 Camberley Town

Ten goals in the game some of which you would struggle to see beaten if you watch top flight football all year, some woeful defending and Chessington on the wrong end of an eight two humiliation.

With everyone expecting a tough but nonetheless close contest this couldn’t have been further from the truth at the final whistle, but early on whilst the visitors were clearly the better side we were in the game and there were no signs of things to come.

The first goal came by way of a Luke Fontana own goal, when his attempted headed clearance from a corner was misguided into the roof of the net.

Affected by this setback we looked vulnerable each time Camberley had the ball, but a number of fine saves from Mark Daniels kept our early hopes alive and we were nearly rewarded twice before the next goal went in. Firstly Zak Graham headed a Matt Ellis cross onto the top of the crossbar, and with no reaction from any of our players a grateful and grounded goalkeeper caught the ball on the line, and then secondly a fine long range strike from Cole-Bolt was spectacularly turned away by the athletic goalkeeper to deny us a certain equaliser.

As the game entered the final five minutes of the half irreversible damage was done, when firstly we were punished for missing a headed clearance and not being set up properly to deal with the flick on with the resulting chance being emphatically taken, and then right on the whistle slack marking and a deflected shot fell kindly to the Camberley wide man who slotted home from eight yards out.
From the prospect of a one-goal deficit and a chance to re organise we found ourselves out of the game at three goals to nil at the break.
With little more to play for in the second half but pride, we needed to shore up the defence and hope that a goal for us might unsettle the visitors, and early half chances that came our way were squandered when Buari and Graham may have done better. If that wasn’t bad enough a routine catch from a corner was dropped by the previously faultless Daniels ten minutes into the half to see us go four behind.

A degree of credit must go to the players for not folding altogether at this stage, although none of that faint praise glosses over the cracks in the ability or lack of it shown on the night.

The faintest glimmer of satisfaction was ours with twenty minutes to go when at that stage we scored the best goal of the night. A perfectly weighted through ball from Cole-Bolt was chased down by Buari, who smashed past the helpless keeper from an acute angle. In fact this lead to a five minute spell of pressure when to be fair we were probably unfortunate not to be awarded a penalty, when from an Ellis corner the back post defender got away with a handball whilst in the process of clearing. It may have been an undeserved opportunity to reduce the arrears but we could have done with the help.

This was almost the last highlight of the evening for us as we proceeded to concede three goals in a six-minute spell. Firstly from a poorly hit clearance from Heath a spectacular long range effort proved unstoppable, then we gifted a free header to a Camberley front man from six yards out, and for number seven a catalogue of errors and lack of ambition on our part to defend, saw another fine strike from the edge of our box fly into the roof of our net.

Amazingly we then scored again ourselves when Buari capitalised on a goalkeeping error to sweep home after good work from Leon White.
If we were clinging to the hope that we might actually score the last goal of the night we were disappointed again when non existent marking in the penalty box gifted our opponents an eighth goal to cap a most miserable night.