We travelled to Sandhurst Town on Tuesday, 20th August, for an evening kick-off, hoping to secure our first league points of the season. Unfortunately, we ended up losing 4-1 in a match marked by two penalties and two sin bins, all of which were against us.

Dan O’Donovan reclaimed his place in goal, Ethan Brazier stepped in to replace the suspended Toby Young, and Ali Fofahan made his debut up front on the right. Axel Kodjo and Kenny Antony were named on the bench.

We started strongly and appeared the more confident of the two sides. However, we fell behind in the 24th minute due to a penalty that seemed incredibly soft, awarded by a referee who, it could be said, ‘did not have a very good evening’; more on that later. We fought back, creating several good chances, but one shot was blocked twice by our opponents, denying us a certain equaliser. We then went further behind due to a misplaced back pass that allowed the Sandhurst attacker a clear run on goal, and he finished before our goalkeeper could react, making it 2-0 to our hosts at half-time.

The second half started brightly for us, with Craig Dundas, ever the reliable presence, heading home from the edge of the six-yard box to pull a goal back. We continued to look the more dangerous team and should have equalised during this period. However, any momentum we had was lost when Callum Wilson was sin-binned for ten minutes for comments made to the referee. Sandhurst were awarded a second penalty, which was one of the few decisions the referee got right, though it was superbly saved by Dan O’Donovan. We continued to press for an equaliser, but after switching to three at the back in an attempt to force the issue, we conceded a third goal. Another of our players was sin-binned for remarks made to one of the assistant referees, leaving us down to ten men. A couple of minutes later, a Sandhurst player expressed his displeasure with an expletive aimed at the referees but was not sin-binned (which seemed inconsistent). We conceded our fourth goal in the 90th minute as the Sandhurst forwards were given too much freedom, ending the match 4-1.

Regrettably, this game will be remembered for one of the poorest refereeing performances we’ve witnessed in a long time, characterised by inconsistent decision-making, including not enforcing a 30-second departure for a Sandhurst player who had been attended to by the physio during injury time. We must now consign this result to history.

We do not have a match this Saturday, but we will face our ‘landlords’, Corinthian Casuals, at The Armada Stadium. King George’s Field on Bank Holiday Monday at 3 pm. We hope to welcome some ‘ground hoppers’ who may have attended an earlier match at 11:30 am; they will be most welcome, as we expect a large crowd for this fixture.