Match Reports
11/10/08
Horsham 3s 5-5 Men's 4th XI
A ridiculous score line see Brighton 4s stall slightly on their march to return to the Premier Division.
JC and Chris Perry returned for their first league outings of the season replacing the absent Bondy and Ready but it was largely the conquerors of Crawley that would get another chance to impress.
We knew that Horsham would be a tidy outfit but Brighton started with the appropriate level of urgency and put Horsham under immediate pressure. However, against the run of play Horsham showed their sharpness in the D and a free hit was slapped in and diverted past the sleeping Brooksy and Brighton were a shock 1-0 down.
This sparked Brighton into action and Smithy showed some attacking prowess on the left to cut scythe like through the Horsham midfield to set up Matt “No Nickname” Harding to plop the ball over the keeper and restore the parity. From the next attack a short corner was awarded and Willy D struck the perfect shot to give Brighton a deserved lead. Horsham continued to press on the break and cause Brighton’s back 5 (including Brooksy) no end of trouble with Brooksy having to scramble the ball clear on more than one occasion.
As Brighton seemed to rise to the ascendancy Brooksy was on hand to put the skids back on and clattered into Horsham’s laughing tricky dicky player to concede a penalty flick which was converted with style.
Perhaps Brooksy was having a bad day all round as he gave his boys a right rollicking at half time, very out of character. Deep breaths and a spell of anger management classes have been prescribed.
It did not have the required effect as again Horsham were smarter in and around the D and they re-took the lead.
However, again Brighton bounced back with JC finally finding some time to equalise with a thunderous effort.
Brighton began to pour forward but the Horsham keeper was on the form of his life and denied Brighton what would have been on another day a hatful of goals.
Horsham refused to rest and a short corner was swept into the roof of the net by the giggling forward.
However, yet again JC was on hand to score on the second asking. He unleashed a frightening effort into the toes of the Horsham bandana wearing captain (no sympathy, sorry) which sent the bloke crashing to the floor with the ball returning to JC’s stick. JC was given the chance to play on and passed the prone player and smashed the ball with unerring power into the goal. The banana wearing captain wasn’t best pleased vented his spleen at Fiona Walker umpiring…hang on the team sheet say’s Kev Browne. Surely Kev wouldn’t wear an oversized pink hoodie would he..?
A scrambled goal from Willy D and Brighton looked like they may yet get the points from the game but Horsham would not give in and equalised.
It was probably the fair result but one which left Brighton ruing some poor defending and goal-keeping.
The positives must be taken from the game, Brighton never gave up and created some excellent chances again, just like last week, and against a team that will be challenging for promotion come March.
The negatives however, were that too often any defensive guile was missing and when your ‘keeper seems anchored to the ground it doesn’t help very much.
Team: Brooksy, Smithy, Perry, Sheff, Wrighty, Tosh, JC, Dob, Captain Dan (he isn’t the captain) Selby, Harding and Banaman.
Scorers: Matt H 1, Dob 2, JC 2.