It was good to be back at the Hood for the first home game of a new season and with the comfort of three points from the previous Saturday’s win at Alexandra Park. It was also good to see that our recruitment drive had drawn in so many new players with six of the fourteen in our squad playing their first season and bringing down the age profile of the club.

Over the past two seasons I have always felt that we never quite got the results we deserved: A win would become a draw and a good point would be snatched from us in the dying minutes, but not today. Old Finchleians were lively and organised and their industry gradually secured them the upper hand.

They did not carve out that many opportunities, but after half an hour we carelessly gave the ball away inside our own half made a couple more defensive slips and their man was at the far post to drive the ball home.

In the second half we gave a slightly better showing but they carved out the better opportunities and missed them. Their strikers had a very off day as our keeper, Siraj, still did not have that much to do.

Their profligacy was punished, just as ours has been in the past and a one goal lead is seldom enough. A great ball out of defence from Ben Cook was controlled brilliantly by James Laughton and crossed to Jonny Graham who controlled it with a good first touch and buried with his second to make it 1-1 with 10 mins to go.

They still had time to win the game but missed to go golden opportunities and had a shout for a penalty. Another good move from our boys gave Jonny another chance to inflict even more pain on the visitors but he curled his shot over the bar. So in the end we were pleased with our point and they were disappointed with theirs. Our squad had a fresher look with some good young new members well marshalled by Clappers.

TEAM: Siraj (GK), Ben Victory, Ben Cook, Clappers (Capt), Clowesy, Sam, Woody, Will Lowe, Emilio,

Ivan, Tom Rowe

SUBS: James Laughton, Jonny Graham, Will Kearns)

Posted in Match Reports 1s