Ashford Scorers:
Chris Davies, Robert Hewes, Bruce Cotton (2)
The pot of gold that is promotion to Open Division 3 came another step closer with this superlative performance and result which took the mighty Team Ashford to the top of the tree courtesy of South Bucks dropping 2 points to West Hampstead.
But before we get too cocky, the next 4 games see us play 4th/3rd/5th and 2nd so let’s see where we are then!!
Back to this game and a big fillip was the first game for us of hockey guru Bruce Cotton who was to have a major effect on the midfield and team as a whole. Of course just to even up the karma./yin yang thing, Big Amit had to retire after 15 minutes due to his ribs playing up..Baby Ell slotting in to centre back. We did not start well as per normal and Eastcote dominated the first 10/15 minutes as we struggled to find the fluency of last week. However we got through that without conceding and Chris Davies deflected in a Big Amit whack to put us one-up and settle our nerves.
We then dominated the rest of the game, hard to pick out people as the whole team performed well. The youngsters provided pace and excellent technical skills while the old boys played steady and calm - we played with width and time on the ball with Bruce pulling the strings in the middle. By half time we were 3-up, the ball was worked into the D to Chris who reverse -sticked it past the keeper for Bert Hewes to push home, the 3rd was from a shortie and an old 1st team routine ‘the old faithful’ - out to Bruce, passed right, returned to Bruce who flicked home…he cotton miss…
The second half we pushed very hard for more goals but were possibly over -eager, Eastcote had a little more of the game and I don’t know how they didn’t get at least one goal with one chance put wide from 2 yards with the keeper beaten, excellent pressure from Bubbles. Ant also saved a penalty to keep another clean sheet for the 4’s before Bruce scored his second, receiving the ball just outside the D, he wrong-footed his marker before smashing the ball home. An excellent effort and result but we are going to have keep this level of performance up over the next few weeks.
