02/18/07

2006 / 2007 Season 18/11/2006

In the absence of both Captain and Vice-Captain; Steve Carvey skippered the side, in the first return match of the season, to a very satisfying 7-3 aggregate defeat over local rivals Maresfield.

This was an extremely positive performance throughout, in which, despite the score-line at half-time suggesting that nothing happened in the second half, Buxted never let the opposition settle and were lively and goal-hungry to the final whistle. Having said that, the damage was obviously done in the first half with a twenty-minute 4-goal blitz which must have had Maresfield’s heads spinning. Well… they started it... with a peculiar goal after only 3 minutes which was hooked over Harper from about 7 yards out. The Buxted defence hadn’t really decided who was marking whom in a tightly-packed box and a stray foot got a touch, 1-0.

Un-deterred, Buxted got straight down to business equalising 3 minutes later with possibly the best move of the game. It was certainly the best goal as the whole move was started from Buxted’s right-hand corner flag and Maresfield didn’t touch the ball until their ‘keeper picked it out of his net. It was Gareth who hooked the ball out from under the corner flag for Steve to knock it down the line where Scotty was waiting. He layed it down beautifully into Andy King’s path and Andy wasted no time in slotting it though the defence for Mark to run onto it. Having slipped the defender Mark’s finish was clinical and it was the perfect reply to Maresfield’s early effort. Some good football followed and after 15 minutes Buxted began turning the screw when Ben got away down the left and (slightly) miss-hit a cross which Andy (slightly) miss-hit with the outside of his right boot for number two. Ben’s work down the flank was not always pretty but he made a valiant effort in an unfamiliar position. Number three looked nailed-on after 17 minutes but Shane’s shot was wide and high, when 1-on-1 with the ‘keeper, but he made up for it on 26 minutes with shot which caught the Maresfield ‘keeper off-balance as it was a re-direction of an effort from Andy King. In the mean-time Mark had added his second with a powerful back-post header from a Gareth corner on the right.

At this point this reporter was checking to see if he had enough fingers left to add them all up but was brought down to earth a minute later when Maresfield got a second. The referee had pulled back a Maresfield attack to award them a free-kick in their own half. They weren’t happy about it and the result was a good ball over the top of a high Buxted back-line into the “hole” where a Maresfield striker found himself 1-on-1 with Harper. The brave ‘keeper took the full force of the shot only to see the rebound prodded goal-ward. Dean did his best to keep it out but it just snuck inside the post. It might technically go down as an own-goal but that would be harsh on Dean as it was certainly going in anyway.

The report could stop here, goal-wise, but that wouldn’t do justice to Buxted’s second-half efforts which, after the first ten minutes, gave Maresfield a relentless head-ache.

The mystery is – how did Buxted not score more goals. Maresfield hardly got out of their own half and were getting pretty frustrated with each other. The Buxted back four had hardly to break sweat. Nigel helped by doing exactly what was asked of him; protection-wise. On the other hand the Buxted strike-force looked to be running out of ideas and ‘cats among pigeons’ were needed. Although Mark was technically on a hat-trick he didn’t quite look like getting it and Wayne was introduced after 65 minutes to keep the Maresfield defence on their toes. After 70 minutes Pat came on for Andy King and he took Ben’s place on the wing – mostly. Pat was particularly keen to make an impact, and did so with his usual verve, and with Ben looking more comfortable ‘in-land’ the Bucks looked even more likely to get another goal or two. Nevertheless Maresfield held out and 4-2 was the final score.

With so many goals going in it might seem strange to give the Man-of-the-Match award to a defender; yet Dean was faultless. His tackling and powerful re-distribution from left back were superb.             

Lance Ingram

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