Badshot Lea 2 Egham Town 1

THE FA CHALLENGE CUP PRELIMINARY ROUND
BADSHOT LEA 2 (2) EGHAM TOWN 1 (1) : Egham Town scorer Shane Graham (35)

Sunday 26 August 2012

Paul Borg, Josh Andrew, Jake Galbraith, Aarron Taylor-Ives (capt.), Junior Wright, James Brown, Matt Smith, Tom Hedges, James McShane, Charlie McCarthy, James Walters, Shane Graham. Subs: Brendan Matthew (McCarthy, 66), Louis Chandler-Joseph, Louis Hedges, Alex Rodrigues.

A very disappointing performance from Egham Town led to their dismissal from the FA Cup at Weycourt, Godalming Town’s ground whose tenants Badshot Lea took full advantage of a combination of individual errors and some contentious refereeing.
Luke Muldowney, Matthew Smith, and Jamie Read were all missing, leaving Egham short in all three outfield departments. The visitors were showing attacking intent from the off, Charlie McCarthy heading over, but the defence never looked settled. Panicky defending led to an 8th minute corner, Josh Pearson shot wide, Josh Andrew had to clear off the line on 12 and in the 18th minute, under pressure from Darren Blake, Paul Borg punched the ball upwards, then again as it dropped and then watched as Pearson’s low shot hit his left post. Finally that fragility was punished as Borg was caught under a high free kick, patting the ball down and looking on as Adam Cornell hooked the ball in after 23 minutes. Not long after it got worse, Pearson getting on the end of a long pass and scoring with the nearest defender more than an arm’s length away. That seemed to trigger some kind of response because from the kick off James Brown fired in a shot from distance, the ball flying out of keeper Matthew Watson’s grasp and hitting the left post. Ten minutes from half time James Walters whipped in a superb cross from the left and Graham met it at full length to give Egham some hope. Graham had and Brown both had shots saved as Egham pushed for a leveller and as the match resumed that attacking enterprise was in evidence for the opening exchanges.
Two key incidents seemed to turn the tap off as far as Egham’s attacking endeavours went. James McShane had shot from distance and seen Watson turn the ball away, but the first of the key moments came when Tom Hedges sprang from midfield with an attacking foray that took him into the Badshot Lea area, where he reached the byline before pulling the ball back to Graham, whose shiny new boots failed to deliver from 5 yards. Two minutes later Hedges tried again, making his way past three Lea players before getting into the box where he was summarily upended by Sean Hayes. Far from awarding the penalty that it seems everyone was expecting the referee chose to book Hedges for diving. Hedges is already on the way to becoming Egham’s most fouled player and finally someone paid for chopping him down, George Hardy having his name taken. Brendan Matthew replaced McCarthy on 66 minutes, and got stuck into a few challenges. McShane got booked for having the gall to point out to the man in black that when Matthew Griffiths went down injured it was not a head injury so whistling as an Egham attack was building was not the best use of “advantage”. Equally galling was the caution for Jake Galbraith, who was not happy about seeing his keeper fouled. The fight fizzled out. We’re not going to win the bloody thing but losing three times out of three at Wey Court is getting tedious. Badshot Lea now play Folkestone Invicta at home in the first qualifying round. Fingers crossed for the league visit on 26 January.

Next up, on Saturday, for a side with Jesse (Atiase, perhaps three weeks from returning), James (Walters) and John and Wayne pulling the strings is a trip to The Ranch, home of Hanworth Villa. While Egham have managed a few good wins at home against the Villans the record away against them is less than sparkling. The Sarnies follow that with a home game against Dorking on 8 September.

Mark