Our Peter Bentley cup run came to an end on Tuesday evening with defeat by 4-2 to Broadbridge Heath a Premier League side who are battling it out at the top of their division.  This match-up would always provide a good test for our team and so it proved to be with a little bit more luck we might have gotten more out of this game than we eventually did.

There were no changes to our team lineup from the win the previous Saturday away at East Preston.  We welcomed onto the bench our recent signing from Chipstead FC, Warren Colman who made an impressive debut when he came on late in the second half.

Back to the game.  We were behind to our visitors within 3 minutes from an attack that we should have cleared before our goalkeeper was picking the ball out of the net.  We had not started well and it appeared to the home spectators that we appeared to show our visitors too much respect.  We gradually worked our way back into the game and were rewarded with an equaliser in the 20^th minute from the ‘new look’ Athan Smith-Joseph who fired the ball into the roof of the net after a neat turn and dummy just outside the six-yard box.  We were certainly in the ascendency and created other chances to take the lead before halftime but to no avail.  Half time 1-1.

We began the second half in the same rich attacking form and had some half chances to take the lead and then in the space of 7 second-half minutes from the 65th minute we found ourselves 4-1 down; this was undoubtedly harsh on us and did not reflect the match situation; the team did not give up and there battling spirit kept our visitors thinking and they had to defend well to maintain the 4-1 score line. Until the 85^th minute when Gideon Aceheampong jinked his way to the edge of the penalty box and then unleashed a left foot (yes. left foot!!!) shot into the bottom corner to make it 4-2; could the comeback be on? Unfortunately, we will never know because in the 93^rd minute we had a perfectly good goal not awarded by two of the officials who deemed that the ball had not crossed the goal line after a shot from Jubril Adamson; a video from one of our supporters confirmed that it had gone over the line and more importantly the visiting goalkeeper on leaving the pitch at the end of the game confirmed that it had crossed the line by just under 2 feet. These things happen I am afraid at our level and we just move on.

Overall, it was a superior performance apart from the 7-minute spell in the second half, but it demonstrated to everyone there that we could certainly ‘hold our own’ in the higher division; we just have the little matter of getting there in the first place to overcome.

We return to League action on Saturday when we play against Hailsham Town in only our 3^rd Home league game, it would be great to see many of you there.  If you are ‘out and about in Epsom, you should notice various posters advertising our next 3 games as we try to get out into our community more and increase our support base.  If any supporter can think of a place to put these posters to get us maximum publicity then please let one of our committee know and we will try to ensure that we get that area covered.

As Reported by Peter Mutton