We met AFC Croydon for the third time this season, but this time was at their home ground the Mayfield Stadium in a league encounter. There was no sign of their illustrious owners, Stormzy or Wilf Zaha, but then their supercars might not survive the bumpy track you have to drive down to get to the stadium.
We welcomed four new players to the squad with 3 making a starting berth. The 3 new starters all had good games with one of them having their debut curtailed by injury early in the second half. The new players were Connor Beattie in goal, Adam Green in midfield and Mekhi (pronounced Mackay) Savage on the right wing. On the bench the fourth new addition was Reggie Savage.
When the game started we definitely had the better of the opening exchanges and then found ourselves one nil down after a Croydon breakaway after 5 minutes. We went further behind again against the run of play mid-way the first half, but eventually got a goal back which we deserved through our striker Carl Obiltey who scored his third goal in four games; a very good return. The half ended 2-1.
As soon as the second half started we suffered an injury to our debutant goalkeeper and he had to leave the field with an ankle injury; Toby Colwell our reserve goalkeeper came on to replace him. Our opponents scored a third goal shortly afterwards from what looked like a clear offside position, but as so often this season the officials waved away our protests. We then found ourselves 4-1 down with what was a superb half volley from just outside the box, it was soon to be 5-1 when the same striker scored another low strike into the bottom corner; to any avid Epsom supporter these were two high quality goals. With a few minutes to go we scored our second goal of the game through Ethan Nelson-Roberts to make it 5-2 which is how the game finished.
The score line and headline above does not do our performance justice, we played well and really lost to high quality goals and could and should have got something out of the game.
We move onto another very hard game on Tuesday night at home when we play the only team in the football pyramid who have a 100% record in Farnham Town. We are expecting a sizeable away following so if you are coming to the match you might want to get to the Reg Madgwick stadium a little bit earlier than normal.
