We made the long trip to a very foggy Alton Football Club on what must have been one of the coldest days of the year thus far, but with it being played on a 3G pitch the likelihood of it being called off was minimal – Snoods, hand warmers, beanie hats and gloves were the order of the day and that was just the players!!!

In the absence through suspension of Ollie Thompson, Nick Wilson was deployed alongside Reece Tierney in the centre back role. We started the game with a front line of Tino Carpene, George Owusu and Jann Stanley.

As the first half began, it became increasingly difficult to see what was going on clearly due to the mist and fog descending onto the ground. There were very few opportunities or chances in the first half for either side with long and close range shots missing the target easily. In fact, it became difficult to see what was going on in either penalty area due to the weather. The half ended 0-0 which was right for any neutral or not supporter in the crowd.

Shortly after the second half began, we made a change to our front three with all of them coming off to be replaced by Luke Miller, Yannick Montaigne-Ebwa (making his debut) and Sirak Negassi. Unfortunately, shortly after, we conceded our first goal in the 63rd minute from a bit of ‘ping pong’ passing in our penalty area; this was a setback. It got worse 5 minutes later when we conceded again after an innocuous cross was missed by two of our defenders and the Alton forward just nodded the ball past our goalkeeper. This was cruel as it was not a 2-0 score line at all but that seems to be our luck at this current time.

Did this galvanise us into a fightback, it did not, we did not trouble the opposition goalkeeper at all in the second half and so the game fizzled out to a 2-0 defeat; this was out third defeat in a row it is very clear that we need to stop this run of bad form soon.

We will try to do this at home to Guildford City next Saturday with a kick off at 3pm at the Reg Madgwick stadium in Cobham.