Sandridge Rovers 1 Knobs 1

After our 3 pre-season friendlies, our first league match duly arrived – a tough looking away game v Sandridge.

Back in March we had surrendered meekly at home and lost 4-2.  The dream team of Dave and Darren were expecting a lot better in this fixture.

For the 2nd away game on the bounce we all arrived early and were raring to go.  We had time for a short presentation by the chairman to last year’s player of the year, James and off we went to do battle.

After 10 minutes of warming up the referee decided to get the match started.  He made no friends on our team by making quite a few strange decisions.  Leaning on a Sandridge player was a foul.  Only when a Knob hit the floor hard did we get a decision.

The Sandridge players didn’t need the referee to wind them up though as they were doing a good job of that themselves.  One of their players stormed off early saying that he would not come back on unless one of his team mates left the pitch. 

We were just about on top in the first half as we pressed them high and restricted their chances.  The only shot that troubled Tony all game was the deflected shot during the half that managed to find its way into our net.  We had more of the chances but we either missed the target or found their very good goalkeeper.  The half ended with us trailing 1-0.

At half time Dave J had a shuffle.

On came debutant Dave Millhouse.  He says he is a forward so we put him on the left wing.  Dan Looney was replaced by Ross up front.

From the off the second half was a different story.  As the team continued to press, Sandridge resorted to simply lumping the ball up to their front players who rarely got a sniff with both James and Big Darren winning everything in the air.  With Sandridge tiring our superior football meant the chances were coming to us more frequently. 

Not long into the 2nd half we were forced to make a change as Sergio got a sun tan injury and was replaced by the returning Dan.  Dan’s Mars bar would just have to wait.

The superior passing and moving meant we were now dominating the game.  Darren A proved his crossbar hitting skill from the week before was not a fluke by lobbing the keeper and hitting the cross bar again.

Finally though we got the goal we more than deserved.  Ross was played in down the left, cut in and sent a curling shot towards the top right corner.  The goalie who was the difference on the day, somehow got his hand to the shot but the ball fell to Tony K who from 1 yard out managed to scramble the ball over the line.  The management dream team should take full credit for this as they made the bold move of putting Tony on the right wing!

Our chances kept coming.  These were missed, blocked or saved by their keeper.  Frustration all around.

We pushed for the win but ran out of time.  A great performance but ultimately it was a draw that felt like 2 points dropped.

Most of us headed for the bar to eat the sausage sandwiches and sawdust wedges where we were entertained by Dave J and Alastair debating the acoustics of the changing rooms back at Knebworth and the wisdom of making John Boyle a licensee of a club house at the Rec.

Next week we return home to play Blunham in the league.  In our first 4 games we have used 26 different players but only Bully and Darren have played in all 4.  It’s a big squad but it would be nice to have a settled team!