Epsom & Ewell vs Chessington & Hook

Following a first league defeat at Sandhurst on the previous Saturday, it’s fair to say that a fourth straight away league fixture in a derby game on a Tuesday night against a team who are expected to be pushing at the top is the last thing you would want and so it proved.

Team changes were again made with Leon Canning returning at the heart of the defence and Shane Graham being restored to the starting line up.

The pattern of the game closely matched that against Sandhurst with both sides cancelling each other out with only an occasional chance falling either way.

The message to Chessington must surely be to track runners and concentrate as half time approaches, as yet again a goal was conceded when it appeared that a half spent facing the conditions and Epsoms energy had been completed goalless. This surely would have been considered a job well done. As it was for the second successive game the half time talk had to be changed because of that failure.

As was expected the second half with the conditions now in favour of Chessington was a potentially a different matter. However early chances to get back on level terms were created and missed and you could sense that Epsom felt that they had weathered the initial storm.

On the hour and on the break Chessington were undone down their right and from the resulting cross a thumping header found the back of the net.

Chances continued to come and go without ever really threatening the Epsom goal and there was a sense of inevitability that it was to be another disappointing night. With ten minutes to go and from a Chessington corner a hurried clearance somehow saw Epsom have a one on one chance which was duly converted for three nil. Despite the late introduction of Reece North who was making his debut and Dean Pitcher there were no further chances created and a disappointing 4 days saw us lose for the second time.