Egham Town 4 Westfield 0

THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION CHALLENGE CUP SPONSORED BY BUDWEISER
EXTRA PRELIMINARY ROUND
EGHAM TOWN 4 (0) WESTFIELD 0 (0)
EGHAM TOWN SCORERS: SHANE GRAHAM 2 (67, 80), JESSE ATIASE (68), JAMES BROWN (90+5)
After a bit of a struggle Egham Town eventually made it past CCL One leaders Westfield with a powerful second half display that showed the gap in class between the two sides. Both had won their opening brace of league fixtures, so it was no surprise that the first half was fairly even, if somewhat featureless. One decent save by Egham keeper Paul Borg from Abu Rehman late in the half was about all that had me reaching for pen and paper. The most notable thing was the presence of Peter Lelliott from Molesey, James McShane’s last club. “You can’t have him back”, I said, “he’s ours now and we like him.”
The second half was a different affair. Egham’s opening strike pair of Jamie Read, with three goals in those first two games, and Robbie Burns, in his first start since his return, had toiled with neither luck nor success and were replaced after 52 minutes by Shane Graham and James Walters, who had scored the fourth goal in the midweek thrashing of Colliers Wood United. On 59 minutes James Brown replaced the industrious Matt Smith, and then the subs got going.
Magnificent work from Tom Hedges and Jesse Atiase tore open Westfield’s right flank, and Shane Graham took full advantage, controlling Atiase’s pass and stroking the ball past James Paviour from close range. From the kick off Egham won the ball back which allowed Atiase to cut in from the left and hammer an unstoppable shot from at least 25 yards ; Paviour’s dive was fruitless. Desperate defending denied Josh Andrew increasing the lead and Paviour had to make a very good save to prevent Brown from opening his account. Then Westfield fell apart; a really bad piece of defending presented Graham with an unmissable chance converted after a stroll for 15 yards, unmolested by any rearguard action, and the finish was comfortable. Two minutes later Westfield centre back Charlie Newman received his second card in pretty short order, and the space then afford Egham allowed Brown to line up and execute a howitzer of a shot from fully 30 yards five minutes into injury time for a 4-0 win that sees Egham Town face either Badshot Lea or Mole Valley SCR in the Preliminary Round.

EGHAM TOWN: Paul Borg, Josh Andrew, Jake Galbraith, Aarron Taylor-Ives, Luke Muldowney, Matt Smith, Jesse Atiase, Tommy Hedges, Jamie Read, Robbie Burns, James McShane.
Subs: James Walters (who, having scored our 4th on Tuesday, came on for either Jamie Read or Robbie Burns; I have photographic proof), Shane Graham (who came on for either Robbie Burns or Jamie Read and scored twice), James Brown (who replaced Matt Smith and hammered in a wonder shot), Louis Hedges (who did not come on) and Junior Wright (who kept Louis company).
Thanks to Gareth, the freelance picture-takey man from the Surrey Herald, who showed me how to point my camera in the right direction and do something vaguely useful with it.

Mark