Sands United FC Brighton and Hove vs Peacehaven Athletic FC
Sussex Sunday Football League Division 4
1030am Sunday 24th November 2019 – Buckingham Park
Attendance 37 + 3 dogs
Final score 0 – 5 (HT 0 – 2)
After what seems like an age since our last league home game, we returned to Buckingham Park this week to face high flying Peacehaven Athletic. Top of the league and undefeated in their opening 10 games, this was likely to be our toughest on pitch challenge to date. We remain in 12th place after last weeks draw with Associates, 4 points ahead of Whitehawk Rangers in 13th and only 2 points behind Hove Lions in 11th.
This weeks match was dedicated to Ava Nicholls, who’s funeral was held on Friday 22nd November, and to all the angels who were laid to rest this week. Our hearts go out to Joe, Elle and all the families who have had to say goodbye too soon.
Availability led to a swathe of changes for this weeks squad with Chris Mates, Steve Bolland, Grant Ashworth, George Whiting, Jason Bantock, Tim Holt and Mat Crann all unavailable this week. Coming into the squad to fill these huge boots were Paul Peacock, John Westcott, Andy Lindley, Chris Kowalkowski, Allan Pike and making their club debuts Grant Hopkins and Ross Leckey.
With the knowledge we were going to be up against it from the off this week, Jamie Stratton tweaked the starting formation away from our familiar 4-3-3 to a more compact and defensive 4-5-1. Starting in goal for the boys in Orange this week was Youseff Kheir, last weeks man of the match as voted for by the matchday squad, a back line of Jon Goodwin at Right Back, Ross Leckey at Left Back with Chris Kowalkowski and Grant Hopkins at Centre Back, the midfield quintet of Joe Nicholls – captain this week – and Ed Allingham providing the width with Callum Underhill, John Westcott and Luke Kennedy providing the engine and Andy Bersey leading the line. Starting on the bench this week were Kev Thaxter, Andy Lindley, Paul Peacock, Darren Silverson and Allan Pike.
The game started off at a steady tempo this week, with Peacehaven getting the ball down and playing some nice football, but with our compact defensive line making it difficult for them to work the ball around us. The first chance of the game fell to us on 2 mins when Andy won a free kick on the edge of the box after pressuring their defence. Set pieces were going to be key to any chance we may have of causing an upset today and with the experienced head of John Westcott over the ball, there was a sense that an early goal could really set the cat amongst the pigeons. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be this time with John blazing over the bar.
Soon after we forced a corner on the right hand side, which was swung in by John aiming for the head of Luke. As Luke came down from the header he landed awkwardly with his ankle buckling under him, and then as he fell a Peacehaven player stumbled into him accidentally, falling on the same ankle and leaving Luke in agony. After a couple of minutes of treatment on the pitch Luke had to be carried off, still in pain and with his right ankle seriously swollen. A later scan would show no damage to the bone but with Luke leaving hospital on crutches and out for between 4 and 6 weeks. A huge loss for the midfield and the team as a whole with the festive season approaching.
Another fine mess!
On 7 minutes, your very own match reporter was called into action! After a quick break down the Sands Left, Kev miscued a cross which left the Peacehaven keeper scrambling low to his right to collect the ball, almost finding a deposit that some irresponsible dog owner had decided not to pick up. Fortunately, we always have bags on hand for this kind of issue and the offending mess was removed. Should any dog walkers find themselves reading this, please pick up after your dogs! The park is there for everyone to use.
The game was quite flat for some time after that early flurry of activity, with Peacehaven dominating possession but being restricted to long range efforts or half chances which were generally dealt with quite comfortably by our defence. Then on 27 mins a Peacehaven ball across the box missed everyone, and then with Ed chasing to clear, he was nudged off the ball with what looked like an arm in the back rather than shoulder to shoulder. The ball was then returned into the box and Peacehaven broke the deadlock with a tidy finish.
Uncertainty
3 minutes later Peacehaven doubled their lead with a well taken free kick from their left aimed at our back post. At a higher standard commentators talk about finding the ‘corridor of uncertainty’ for these kind of free kicks, where defenders and keeper struggle to commit to the ball in case a striker gets in front of them and scores an easy tap in. Peacehaven definitely found the corridor this time and the ball nestled in the side netting for a 2-0 lead.
Before kicking off again Kriss Akabusi’s new best mate Andy ‘Phil’ Lindley was introduced for Andy Bersey up front. As we moved towards half time there was chance for one more attack from us with John finding a lovely ball over the top looking for Joe, who collected well and looked to have beaten his man, only for the defender to recover well. The half ended with a bit of a goal mouth scrap in our penalty area, but our defence stood strong to keep the arrears to 2 going in to the break.
At half time the manager looked to keep things positive, after all we were up against a team who had scored 17 goals in their last 4 league games as well as putting 5 past a team second in the league above in the cup recently. With no changes at half time the plan was to try and stay compact and keep the game competitive.
Early in the second half another change for us saw Paul Peacock introduced for Jon at right back. Not long after this, Peacehaven had a huge penalty appeal turned away following a challenge by Kev. I could be extremely biased and say that Kev obviously got the ball here and that the appeals were a waste of time, but by all accounts it was the clearest penalty you’ll never see given!
It didn’t seem to knock Peacehaven out of their stride though, who continued to attack and found the back of the net after a quick strike was initially parried away by Youseff, only for their striker to be quickest to react to the save and calmly slot home from close range.
Andy-Phil-Diego!
We were by no means out of the game and still looked to attack when we could. Callum quickly broke away following a Peacehaven attack and found John who came forward with the ball and then looked to play in Andy who ended up handballing after a bit of a tussle with the defence. Andy was back in action soon after, clearly inspired by his recent hand ball he showed further Maradona-esq skill with a clever flick over his head, giving the Sands United fans something to cheer about even if the match wasn’t going our way.
After the earlier shout for a pen wasn’t given, Peacehaven were then given 2 pens in the space of 2 minutes. The first was missed after an excellent save by Youseff diving to his right and getting a strong hand to parry away. Peacehaven made no mistake with the second pen though, sending Youseff the wrong way and taking the visitors lead to 4.
With the result now seeming a formality, a number of late substitutions were made, with Jon coming back on for Ross, Andy B returning to action for Joe after an excellent performance given the difficult week he has had. With 15 minutes to go Darren replaced Grant at the back and Allan came on for Ed.
There was still time for Peacehaven to find another goal, this time with a lovely strike from the edge of the box to take all the points back east along the A259.
After the match Jamie Stratton offered these thoughts “I thought the lads worked extremely hard against excellent opposition today. They had a lot of quality and deserved the victory but I am very proud of the players for how they played throughout the game”
All in all a tough game for us this weekend against an excellent team who are understandably setting the pace at the top of this division and played the game with the correct attitude throughout. We acquitted ourselves well and have to take heart from that as we look to build as the season progresses. We are due a run of games soon against the teams around us, which will really give us a true feel of our position in this league, but it’s clear for all to see now that we’re not here just to make up the numbers.
At the moment we’re scheduled to face Lancing United next Sunday at Buckingham Park, 1030 kick off. We hope to see everyone there for what should be a fantastic match!
