Report

Today’s game was played on the Ball Field, Cranbrook and looked in good condition. In truth the ground was good for a stud but had quite a few bobbles which caused problems for both teams.

The wind picked up just before kick off and shooting right to left would be hard work. For most of the game when the ball was in the air it either held up or flew for miles!

Cranbrook won the toss and chose to shoot into the wind in the first half hoping to defend tightly and keep Burwash at bay. Kick off time came and Cranbrook started really well with some great movement and superb passing between the defenders and midfield and the two strikers worked well to hold the ball up and lay it back. This was working very well and Cranbrook started off with two good chances, both scrambled off the line by panic stricken defenders.

Soon into the game Homewood made a great run through the defenders and into the area where a defender charged straight into him, arms up and shoved him to the ground. Cranbrook players appealed and stopped thinking the referee would be blowing his whistle and pointing to the shop.....but all you heard was a bit of tumbleweed floating past.....needless to say the whole game was going to be that was with the referee fast asleep in the defending half of the pitch. both teams had several incidents throughout the game which aggrieved the teams where decisions went completely the wrong way, goal kicks were given instead of corners and free kicks were unheard of - is this what football is really coming down to? The standard of refereeing in this league is abysmal to say the least and you can see why players fly in recklessly and players get injured - whilst play continues as if nothing has happened! Anyway - back to the game and less moaning!

It was Burwash who broke through first with a teasing ball through splitting the defenders and the pacey striker coming through to finish past a keeper who normally features out on the pitch! Cranbrook looked sluggish after this and never really got going again and Burwash took advantage of the fact. Cranbrook lost possession to many times and allowing other players to do the hard work. Lack of communication led to the second goal where again Cranbrook lost the ball and a few bad touches from both teams saw the ball trickle past the keeper and into an open net.

Cranbrook saw the half go by and went in 2-0 down.

The second half was brighter and the rain stopped and Cranbrook came out slightly better. With Tom coming on for Herbie it was looking like some fresh legs could do the job. Not much else happened for a while and both teams fell into a stalemate competition but it was AJ who livened things up and got the ball down and took on a defender and got hacked down inside the bo.x he went down like a sack of spuds (sorry AJ but you did!!!) but he was not to get back up. His calf was badly damaged and he spent the rest of the game on the sideline and was replaced by Gower Jnr. Thinking that the incident was undoubtedly a penalty, Cranbrook got ready to think about who was going to take it......no......forget that - we were never going to get a penalty if we continued playing for the next week!

It was going to be fresh legs that made the difference and Dan J made way when he got clattered and Gower filled the left back slot. Starting slowly and getting into the pace of things it went quiet again but the ball broke lose and Gower’s run from the left wing pressuring the keeper meant that the keeper only had one choice - hit and hope....Gower’s thoughts were the same and both struck the ball which could have gone anywhere but it landed at the feet of Campbell who calmly smashed the ball into the middle of an open goal which was been shut down by defenders. Gower will take that as an assist!!!

The game drew out and the referee blew up at 2-1 to Burwash but Cranbrook will have the right to feel miffed by some poor decisions and lack of goals.