This week saw us travel to Southborough Reserves, where once again we were looking to come away with 3 points and further secure our position at the top of the table.
 
Paul Herbert and Leon Piscina were both unavailable for today's fixture however we were able to welcome, recent signing Scott Barren into the squad. We lined up with J Faulkner in goal, a back four of Bridges, Hart, Chambers and Hunt. Across the midfield were M Faulkner, Bowen, Rosier and Tuema, with Warner and Thomas up front. Tamplin, Poore and Barren made up this weeks bench.
 
After last weeks sluggish performance we had hoped that today's game would see us return to some kind of form and play our normal kind of football. Unfortunately that wasn't the case as Southborough made it very difficult for us to get into our stride, as they never gave us any real time on the ball to pick our passes and played with with lots of determination.
 
During a largely uninspiring match, there were one or two occasions where we strung three passes together and looked dangerous but sadly for us these were few and far between. Thankfully apart from a few free kicks and corners we were never in any real danger at the back and i think James was only called to make a save on one occasion, so it was just a case of being patient and hoping that we would create at least one decent chance to secure the points.
 
Both Glen and Tuem's had good opportunities to break the deadlock, but both of them declined the invitation of an open goal! Thankfully for us though, early in the second half Mike picked up the ball 30 yards from goal and after a quick one-two with Glen on the edge of the area, he beat a couple of defenders before cooly slotting past the keeper, for what turned out to be the only goal of the game.
 
Lethargic, sloppy and unimaginative are all words that can be used to describe today's performance, but once again we can be proud of the fact that we continued to dig in and grind out a result. The camaraderie within the camp is really good this year and it is this that has got us back into games and secured the points when we haven't played at our best. When we are on our game the football is good, but when we aren't firing on all cylinders it is the team spirit, which is
probably the best gadget in the world, that has carried us home.
 
Not a great deal else to report from today's match, other than we will need to improve next week as we have a tough fixture at home to Blackham & Ashurst.