Farnham Town v Godalming Town – 05/12/2020

Match Report by Grey Graham (Harris)

It was so good to be finally back watching football on a Saturday afternoon, despite it being uncomfortably cold. Great to see, as usual, a terrific turn out from the Gs faithful supporters. Despite the home side being reduced to ten men in the first half the Gs could not exploit the advantage that this afforded them.

Being the first chance to play a competitive game after the end of the lockdown it was only to be expected that the teams would be a little ring rusty, but it was certainly the home side who looked best prepared as the match got underway.

The Gs were missing Sam Taylor, Connor Blanchard, Dexter Skipp, Elijah Carter and Kai Francis.

In goal was Adrian Giles.  Myles Davidson, Rory Sellick, Ben May and Nathan Morris made up the back four. While Sam Boultwood, Lekan Osideko and Roberto Dos Santo, were in the midfield, with Javan Scott and Josh Ogunseye as the wide players and Kurt Greenaway wearing the number 9 shirt. On the bench were Matt Dexter, Connor Young, Sam Wade, Luka Scanella and J. MacArthur.

There were plenty of familiar faces in the Farnham squad, with Richard Osai in their goal, Ashley Lloyd in the number 4 shirt, Joe Sowden and Ben Bauchop in the midfield. What was not so familiar was the new strip that the home team were sporting. Hard to describe. Multi coloured diagonal stripes on the shirt that was a sort of modernist camouflage, with, can you believe, yellow shorts and socks!

So, a bit confusing when first arriving and looking over the fence at the pitch, sorting who was who.

It was all a bit even Steven for the first 30 minutes although the hosts had had the best of the territory and a couple of shots needed to be blocked by Adrian. Then the Farnham number 11 was given a straight red card for a tackle in the middle of the pitch which I imagine meant it was for violent conduct.

Soon after Ben May was booked, for a tackle that to me looked pretty innocuous.

Then Ashley Lloyd went into the ref’s book for something more resembling a rugby tackle on a Gs player than anything associated with football, as the game was seeming to get a bit tetchy.

Things did settle down for a while and Farnham capitalised on some poor defensive work in the Gs midfield before attacking down the right and as Adrian came out to close the angle the ball was squared across to the left for an easy tap in for the opening goal.

Only 5 minutes later another sloppy error in the G’s defence saw the home side win the possession and that led to them scoring their second.

All a bit disappointing when the Gs had had the extra man, as we went into half time 2-0 down.

The second half saw Kurt, who had appeared to be injured, replaced by Luka.

We then saw the Gs starting to get back into the game, when first Josh after a typical great run down the right before cutting into the area. This brought a great block from the home keeper and then he also blocked the rebound shot from Lekan.

With the Gs starting to apply more pressure Javan was brought down as he went past his defender into the area. For some reason the ref was not minded to award it. I was closer than he was and it looked cut and dried to me, but that is the way it goes some times. Crucial moments in a game and all that, influencing the final result.

Connor came on for Roberto who had had a good game for me, and soon after Josh created another great run into the box and brought another terrific save from the Farnham keeper again. From the resulting corner the ball came back out of their area where Sam Boultwood took his time and hit a low shot that found the inside of the Farnham upright and netted bringing the score back to 2-1.

The tempting thought of taking at least a point out of this game only lasted another five minutes before the home side scored their third and effectively put the game to bed.

The Gs performance in second half was much improved on the first, but in truth as they struggled against ten men, the Gs were second best to the team who were lying in second place in the League at the start of the game and who moved up to the top of the League by this result.

COYG’s


Posted

in

by

Tags: