Chessington & Hook United 1 vs 2 Sandhurst Town

In the now customary resilient start we were quite lively early on, with two goal scoring chances falling to Dan Gurney. On both occasions he hit the target and worked the visiting keeper, which was to his credit as both attempts were from outside of the box.

The game itself though was quite even and our back line were working extremely hard to contain their front two, who seemed able to get on every ball that was played into our defensive third.

With both sides cancelling each other out in the first half an hour it was the visitors who broke the deadlock ten minutes before the interval.

A lack of pressure on the wide left midfielder allowed him to cruise across our midfield before finding his opposite wing man, and his early delivery into the box saw a further lack of pressure on the forward who got enough contact on the full to steer the ball into the corner of our net.

Despite trailing at the break we most certainly weren’t out of it, but needed a good opening to the new half. We got the opposite. Our two wide midfielders who had been instructed to play higher seemed to take that as a licence to give up on their defensive responsibilities, and all of a sudden we were being out run, finding ourselves with two opponents to mark and very often short on defensive numbers.

Just eight minutes in and this sloppy approach was punished when Dan Gurney conceded a penalty that was subsequently tucked away with ease.
With Sandhurst still a threat going forward and difficult to break down there seemed no way back.

However with fifteen minutes remaining we gained a lifeline.
A pass from the left which was chested down by Jimmy Brazil was confidently crashed home from the edge of the area by Gary Puckett. An unlikely type of goal for the robust centre half.

If we hoped that this would spark a late comeback we were wrong, as Sandhurst comfortably saw out the final phases without their keeper and defence having any further scares. In fact we seemed to lack a bit of desire and intensity late on and that as much as the result itself was the major disappointment.