We played Crawley Down in the Peter Bentley Cup on Tuesday 6th September at their picturesque ground ‘The Haven’. Our opponents are in Step 5 so it was another good chance for us to test ourselves against higher opposition.

There were a few changes from our last game against Redhill with a few absentees. Riccardo Fernandez took the Captains armband.

We started brightly just as the heavens opened and got off to the perfect start with another goal by Brad Peters from a well-worked corner delivered by Butch Smith in the 5th minute. It was a well-taken goal. We continued to dominate and our opponent’s defence was put under relatively constant pressure; we had plenty of opportunities to increase our lead but the first half ended with us leading 1-0.

We increased our lead shortly after the break with a goal from Josh Owens, his first for the club after a smart finish from around the six-yard box. We began to look very good value for our 2-0 lead, however, we conceded a goal to make the score 2-1 shortly after going 2-0 ahead. The pressure was on now from the home team, however, only a few minutes later we restored our 2-goal advantage by our Captain in the evening scoring our third after a great ball from Richard Pingling.

However, as is sometimes the case we found ourselves pegged back again in the 78th minute. With over 12 minutes to go and injury time we were expecting a bit of an onslaught from the Home team, but this did not materialize apart from a very good shot which was excellently turned over by our goalkeeper, Matt Walton.

It was a great win from the team amidst some strange decision-making by the officials which we were to overcome and progress into the next round where we face Broadbridge Heath FC at home on the 4th of October.

Lastly, we were the only first division club to beat higher opposition in the cup in this round.

Well done ‘boys’

As Reported by Peter Mutton