Chessington & Hook vs Croydon F.C.

Croydon, the visitors, in a game that gave us the opportunity for a first league double of the year.

With one or two notable absentees from the sixteen, manager Glynn Stephens stuck with the diamond shape that was effective against Godalming. Mark Daniels returned in goal, Danny Heath was promoted to the first team to play at centre back and Martin Jackson regained his position in midfield, Paul Timba and Scott Todd starting up front.

The opening exchanges were largely nondescript but for one powerful run from Croydons centre forward which gave due warning as to what we would be dealing with when he was on the ball.

Although tending to play a little too deep and certainly failing to support the front players with any sort of regularity, we were gradually taking control and were rewarded after 28 minutes when the overlapping Paul West drilled Darren Smith’s pass across the box for it to be deflected home off a Croydon defender. Westy may be staking a claim on this but the jury remains out.

Further chances were created but the attempted finish on each occasion was a little lame and we were failing to turn good possession into a comfortable lead.

The early warning served by the big Croydon striker seemed to have been forgotten; when approaching half time he wriggled free from his markers and unleashed a hard drive which Mark Daniels did well to push away, particularly as he lost his footing as he was setting himself for the save.

At the start of the second half and with a better tempo and certainly playing further up the pitch we took full control, playing the game almost entirely in the Croydon half. But with only a one goal lead it was always a problem waiting to happen. We nearly got caught when a through ball stopped suddenly deceiving Mark Daniels and allowing the forward to toe goal wards. Mark did well to get an outstretched leg to it to divert it to safety.

With just over fifteen minutes to go, a corner was kept alive and Paul Timba’s astute pass to Darren Smith allowed him to cleverly tap home from five yards. The dismissal of the Croydon captain should have seen a comfortable conclusion to the game, but seemed to influence the players into taking extra touches, playing Hollywood passes and shooting from almost from anywhere instead of doing the right things.

Thankfully we were not punished and earned a good three points to take us back to fourth in the table.

Unbelievably this completed our twenty first league game of the season meaning the final half of our league fixtures will have to be played in 12 weeks.