We completed our first double of the season by recording a satisfactory 2-0 win at Forest Row. The first game against Forest Row was abandoned after 82 minutes with the scoreline 0-0 when the Epsom defender, Andy Hall suffered various serious leg injuries.

There was good news when we arrived at the ground when we saw that the pitch had been cut!!! We made a few changes with Jaevon Dyer returning to the starting lineup after sickness last weekend; Warren Colman made his first full start for us after a few substitute appearances.

We started very much on the front foot and created a few half chances and probably should have converted one of them and then in the 14th minute a speculative shot from Ryan Smith squirmed under the body of the goalkeeper and we took the lead; probably not a goal that the goalkeeper would like to see repeated too often. It was only a few minutes later when Dyer was through on goal and the aforementioned goalkeeper brought him down and the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. Unfortunately, Ryan Smith’s spot kick was saved by the goalkeeper. The rest of the half was predominately played in our opposition’s half.

There were various chances in the second half and even our opponents had one or two which they should have done better with. A 1-0 lead is never comfortable and we were fortunate that the opposition No 18 was sent off for a bad tackle on Athan Smith-Joseph, the player might have felt slightly hard done by if there was an orange card that the colour that might have been shown. With the opposition down to ten men, we began to control the game a lot more and in the 86th minute Eldi Baze cut in from the right-hand side and scored his first goal for the club; it was no more than we deserved.

The match ended 2-0 for us and the result put us four points clear at the top of the table. The point to note was that this game was our 8th away game this season so we have already played half of those fixtures and it is not the end of October.

We now move onto two home games both of which will be difficult, firstly we welcome one of the last season’s playoff teams to Fetcham Grove in Seaford Town this Saturday and then we host Billingshurst on the 29th. We would truly value a few more supporters coming to watch your local team, why not ‘give it a go, it’s not very often that Epsom and Ewell get something to shout about on the sporting front.