SYDENHAMS (WESSSEX) LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION
TUESDAY 11TH SEPTEMBER 2012
BLACKFIELD & LANGLEY 1 VERWOOD TOWN 0

A trip into the forest beckoned for Verwood on a chilly Tuesday evening, in marked contrast to the heat of last Saturday's trip to Hamble. Two changes were forced on to the team, John Webb was unwell and Nathan Saxby injured. They were replaced by Chris Hall and Phil Midson. With exactly 50 seconds of the game gone we were dealt a cruel blow when the hosts were given too much time on the ball down our left and a hard low cross was cut out by goalkeeper Toomer who sadly could not keep hold of the ball and spilled it straight to the feet of a grateful forward six yards from goal. He couldn't miss the open goal and before many of our team had even touched the ball we were one down. 1-0

We rallied though and our first half chance came on 6 minutes when Hall's shot was too high and didn't trouble the goalkeeper. Back came B&L and on 10 minutes a stinging angled drive from the edge of our box was brilliantly tipped over by Toomer. Back we came and Dyer tried his luck with a 25 yard strike but this one went wide of the post. We were now competing well and on 15 minutes great work from Satterley saw him turn the defence inside out and curl a shot from 20 yards which seemed destined for the top corner only for the keeper to get fingertips to it and divert it for a corner.

The game then seemed to go into a lull, lots of battle for possession but no real chances at either end. On 37 minutes Satterley outpaced the defender to get on the end of a through ball from Evans, bearing down on goal his early shot was palmed away by the keeper for another corner. It came to nothing and we trailed a little unfortunately at half-time 1-0.

The opening minute of the second half dealt us another blow when Kelly went down injured. He limped off and was unable to return and was replaced by Lee O'Connell which forced a reshuffle in the Verwood defence. From this point on Delaney and Evans were immense and limited the home team to very few chances. Two long range efforts were about all that troubled us and both were off target although the second on 74 minutes very narrowly. In truth we had seemed to create very little in the second half despite lots of effort. With 15 minutes remaining we seemed to go up a gear. A good opening was worked to create a chance for Steer but his shot from the edge of the box was blocked.

We pushed even more for the last 5 minutes. A long ball into the home penalty area caused panic in the defence and the keeper and defender going for the same ball could only half clear it. It fell to Steer about 30 yards out and spotting the keeper stranded hit a first time volley that just went over the bar. Our last chance appeared to have gone. One final corner when a defender headed out under pressure from Delaney was safely cleared and we had failed to score for the second time in three games and missed out on a point that nobody could dispute we had deserved

F-T 1-0

Report submitted by Steve Jefferis