We took on Horley Town at our home ground, King George’s Field, watched by a crowd of just over 90. The pitch looked superb after the torrential rain of the previous day and a good cut that morning by the groundsman.

We lost Toby Young to a knee injury he picked up in the midweek win over Hilltop, so Anthony Nazareth came into the central defensive role. There was also a late change to our bench when our substitute goalkeeper pulled his hamstring, so David Romer, a new signing for ‘The Salts’, took his place on the bench.

We had two glorious opportunities to score in the first 10 minutes but spurned both of them. Unfortunately Anthony Nazareth then suffered a bad cut to the head, which left us with ten men while the injury was being treated. During that time, Horley opened the scoring in the 18th minute. We continued to press once Anthony was back on the pitch, and both sides had half-chances, but the half ended 1-0 to Horley.

In the opening stages of the second half, both teams again had chances, but we scored the next goal in the 61st minute through Carl Oblitey after a right-wing cross from Luke Miller; it was no more than we deserved. We then took the lead through our ‘super sub’ Jason Bloor, who scored in the 73rd minute with a low shot from the edge of the penalty area, which the opposition goalkeeper could only watch as it went into the net. That’s 2 goals for Jason from 2 substitute appearances. Could we hold out for a vital victory? Unfortunately not. From a right-wing cross, a looping header went over our goalkeeper in the 83rd minute to make the score 2-2. After a lot of injury time, the game ended 2-2.

For some Epsom supporters, this result could be seen as progress, given that we lost heavily to Horley twice last season. There is no need to dwell on this result, as we play Balham next Wednesday at the home of Tooting and Mitcham, with a 7:45 kick-off.

The games are coming thick and fast at the moment, with a very tough assignment at league leaders Redhill next Saturday.