Egham Town 2 Bridgwater Town 1

THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION TROPHY PRELIMINARY ROUND
SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER 2014
EGHAM TOWN 2 (1) BRIDGWATER TOWN (0)
Egham Town scorers: Reis Stanislaus (24) Brendan Matthew (71)
Bridgwater Town scorer: Tom Knighton (68)

Egham Town scraped their way past Bridgwater Town in the Preliminary Round of the FA Trophy, making life hard for themselves by not imposing their will on the game despite being a goal and a man up after 25 minutes. The reward for this victory is a club record round trip of 547 miles to play at Evo-Stik Southern Premier Truro City in the First Round Qualifying. The Cornishmen sit currently in 8th place, having won and lost four of their eight home games.
Given the relative positions of the two sides, Egham Town in 7th in Evo-Stik Southern One Central, Bridgwater Town in 16th in the South & West equivalent, and with the Sarnies at home and having just beaten Premier side Slough Town 4-2 in the League Cup, Egham were odds on favourites to win this tie but got off to a sluggish start. They still had the first shot on target, skipper Ryan Lake seeing his effort cleared off the line with keeper Ben John beaten, but John was sharper in saving off Brendan Matthew’s instinctive flick as Joe Chandiram’s driven free kick found the striker six yards out.
After 24 minutes Egham were ahead, and once again it was the remarkable Reis Stanislaus who netted. The home side were getting a grip on proceedings and a cross from Jake Galbraith took a clip off the head of Jack Allward. Stanislaus capitalised with a stunning volley round the defender and into the far corner of the net for his seventh goal in five games, and taking his tally into double figures. If that were not encouraging enough the Sarnies were given another leg-up when Bridgwater centre-forward Dean Griffiths earnt a straight red for going right through Josh Andrew, dumping the Egham winger on the deck. That should have been the signal for an Egham onslaught but that failed to happen. In fact not only did the Somerset side cope with being a man down they would have gone in at the break level were it not for Norris managing to tip Tom Knighton’s deflected shot over the bar.
Had Dwayne Antonio managed to convert a more than presentable chance seconds after the restart then home nerves would have settled. In a game in which referee Dave Sheldrake was flashing his yellow card regularly there was always the possibility that one mistimed red shirted challenge would have seen numbers levelled so it was to Egham’s credit that that didn’t happen. Less to their credit was the lack of concentration that let in Knighton to latch on to a loose ball 20 yards from the Egham goal and drill in a 68th minute equaliser with a low shot from the left corner of the box. Egham hit back inside three minutes, Andrew charging out from defence to feed the ball into Matthew. With John approaching the Egham man kept his head and thumped the ball in from the edge of the box. Still Egham failed to put the game to bed, partly because John pulled off a tremendous save as Andrew’s shot took a deflection off a defender and partly because they kept losing possession. Bridgwater offered another incentive for a home win when Kyle Tooze was the second Somerset man dismissed, for a second yellow. Despite this they still fought hard to try to find the equaliser that would have seen an awkward midweek replay for newly confirmed Egham Town management team Luke Muldowney and Richie Byrne, but finally, after five minutes added on, referee Sheldrake’s whistle signalled Egham’s passage to Truro.
EGHAM TOWN: Jamie Norris, Wilson Gondwe, Jake Galbraith, Ricky Farnden, Ryan Lake (Captain), Louis Chandler-Joseph, Josh Andrew, Joe Chandiram, Brendan Matthew, Reis Stanislaus, Dwayne Antonio. Subs: Ashley Quashie, Danny Williamson (Farnden, 55), Wayne Jackson, Mo Harkin (Matthew, 88), Luke Muldowney (Gondwe, 75).