EGHAM T 4 CHESS. / HOOK 1

COMBINED COUNTIES LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION
SATURDAY 20 10 2012
EGHAM TOWN 4 (2) CHESSINGTON & HOOK UNITED 1 (0)

Tom Hedges (18), Jamie Read 3 (35, 59, 72)

The day after Egham Town members past and present attended the funeral of Club President Brian Askew the team he supported for so long maintained their hold on top spot of the CCL Premier Division with a performance that showed a clear gap in class between themselves and their struggling opponents.
What must please Chairman Pat Bennett most after the defection of John Hamsher and Wayne Noad, with six players, to Chipstead, is the apparently seamless manner in which Lee Passmore, Jack McKinlay and Neerav Patel have taken over. Sterner tests than third-from-bottom Chessington & Hook await, and Egham, with 30 points from 13 games have played three more than the three sides below them. Guernsey and Badshot Lea have 27 points and South Park 24. Some catch up will take place next week when Egham visit CCL One Sheerwater in the EL Records Premier Challenge Cup for a second round tie. (Kick off is 2 p.m. – Sheerwater have no lights.)
Egham started with Jacob Lambe up front, partnering Jamie Read, and Jim Watt returned to centre back. It took a while for them to click, but after 18 minutes took the lead after Jamie Houghton’s corner was cleared only as far as Tom Hedges, who slammed the ball home from the edge of the box through a crowd of players. C & H hit back, after the ball bounced up and hit Hedges’ hand for a free kick from which Tom Tyler stretched Paul Borg. The Egham keeper then pulled off an even better save from the corner, turning Rivera Dumer’s powerful header over the bar. Having been threatened, Egham reasserted themselves and from a superb cross by Lambe took a 2-0 lead as Read timed his jump perfectly to guide the ball into Manny Djomor’s net. The half ended with Borg making a more than decent save from Charlie Ottaway’s close range drive.
Egham were off the pace as the second half began, and were made to pay by conceding a goal four minutes in. From a corner they had chances to get the ball clear but after Sonny Walsh had won space in the box by dint of elbowing Alex Rodrigues in the face (unpunished and off the ball) the Chessington centre back converted the rebound off his own shot. Ten minutes later Rodrigues got some kind of payback with a shanked pass upfield finding Read clear, unmarked and in lobbing-the-ball-over-the-keeper distance. The trap, control and shot over Djomor were all sublimely executed, only to be bettered by a magnificent burst in from the right wing and a hammer of a shot into the top left corner for his first hat-trick for Egham Town. Steve Coultas, on for Luke Craig, saw a rising shot smack the bar and Brendan Matthew, who had come on for Lambe, and who started the move for the fourth goal, had a chance to make it five but screwed an angled shot wide. The win was comfortable in the end, but with Molesey (6-1 at Raynes Park Vale) and top scorers Guernsey (5-2 at home against Bedfont Sports) banging in the goals a larger winning margin would have been useful.
The other scores today were: South Park 0 Metropolitan Police 3 (FA Cup 4Q); Badshot Lea 3 Ash United 1, Camberley 0 Croydon 0, Cove 2 Horley Town 0, Epsom & Ewell 2 Hanworth Villa 1, Farnham 1 Colliers Wood United 4, Windsor 6 Sandhurst Town 2, Wembley 3 Dorking 1.
EGHAM TOWN: Paul Borg, Junior Wright, Jake Galbraith, Jim Ward, Alex Rodrigues, Luke Muldowney (captain), Tom Hedges, Jamie Houghton, Jacob Lambe, Jamie Read, Luke Craig. Subs: Enrico Rossoni (Read, 76), Brendan Matthew (Lambe, 72), Stephen Coultas (Craig, 78), Bradley Fraser, Louis Chandler-Joseph.