We entertained high flying Knaphill on Saturday 4th November at the Reg Madgwick stadium. Knaphill came into the game with just the one loss this season thus far and we were on the back of a 5-1 loss at Farnham the previous weekend.

The omens were not good when before the match we lost one of our centre backs who ‘pulled’ up in the warmup; Oli Thompson was replaced by Reece Tierney. Ash Snadden returned to midfield in place of Thompson Adjemi who took a place on the bench and up front we were led by Ade Batula.

The opening exchanges were led by our visitors who had the lion’s share of possession and it was no surprise when they took the lead in the 10th minute. The rest of the half was very even but we failed to seriously trouble our oppositions keeper. One incident of note was just near the halfway point in the first half our Captain Zac Powell fell under a challenge from the opposition goalkeeper and was to play no further part in the game from that moment on. Ash Snadden went to centre back and Thompson Adjemi came onto to replace Ash in midfield. There were two very wrong offside decisions against us in the first half, who knows if they may have resulted in goal, but they were recorded and both times our players were onside.HT 0-1.

In the second half we more than held our own but again did not create much in front of goal either a cross was over hit or a shot not taken when we had a chance to test the goalkeeper. In the 80th minute our visitors increased their lead, this was harsh but probably as mentioned before we had not created a clear-cut chance. They increased the lead again to make it 3-0 in the 87th minute however, there was a clear penalty not given for a push and a trip on the same player before our opponents broke away and scored this goal, even the opposition reporter said it was a blatant penalty – the officials were not having a good game.  In the 90th minute our visitors made it 4-0 and that is how it ended. The scoreline was harsh.

We move onto a Surrey Senior Cup game at home to the might of Sutton United this coming Tuesday and then we have an away game at Tooting and Mitcham on Saturday 11th November when we will be reacquainting ourselves with some of our former players from last season’s promotion winning team – should be an interesting game!!