Town played host to league new boys Wadham Lodge on Saturday in the second round Essex Premier Cup Tie. They welcomed back Wiggy, Lee Humphrey and Rob Flight who had all been AWOL for some weeks but were without Graham Jeater and Chris Neal so Ben Goodall took a break from his fund raising activities and deputised in goal.

The game kicked off and both teams soon started to play some decent football and an end to end game developed. Town probably had slightly the better of the opening stages without looking particularly threatening and in the Town goal, Ben “the cat” Goodall was not called into action and had a quiet start. After 30 minutes Town went ahead when Ben Polley latched onto a through ball and after playing a personal game of “Keepy Uppy” lobbed a couple of defenders before “passing” the ball into the net from the edge of the box for a very well taken and clever goal - 1-0. The remainder of the half passed without major incident at either end so Town went into the half time break one goal to the good. Although Town had done OK in the first half it was thought that we needed to shorten the game down a bit and be more patient as we were trying to force the issue too much and squandering possession.

Wadham came out for the second half determined to get back in the game and the game continued in an end to end fashion. Five minutes into the second half a quick throw put Wiggy away down the left wing and his superb cross was met on the volley by Dave Martin, on the stretch, but he was unable to keep his shot down and his close range effort went just over the bar. At the other end “the cat” made a great save with his feet to deny Wadham. Wadham now started playing really well and attacked Town with great pace all over the pitch. This seemed to coincide with Town “going to pot” and the result was non stop pressure on the Town goal. It came as no great surprise when Wadham deservedly equalised and, still dominant, they then missed a couple more good chances before scoring again following a sweeping move that cut through Towns midfield and defence -1-2. Town now rallied and Wadham’s lead was preserved by their keeper who made a string of fantastic saves. First of all Polley hit a sledgehammer of a shot from the angle that the keeper tipped away when it looked a certain goal all the way – he then made an unbelievable treble save, including the final one where he clawed back a header of the goal line whilst falling backwards into his own goal to deprive Lodgey, who got a kick in the face for his troubles – how the ball never ended up in the net I will never know. The final whistle went and although on paper Town had been the victims of a giant killing, if Wadham perform like this on a regular basis they will certainly work their way through the divisions as they are certainly a very capable side and deserved their victory on the day.

Man of the match this week goes to “the cat” Ben Goodall who performed superbly between the sticks.

El Col