EGHAM T 1 UXBRIDGE 4

CALOR LEAGUE DIVISION ONE CENTRAL
SATURDAY 19 APRIL 2014
EGHAM TOWN 1 UXBRIDGE 4

Egham Town scorer: Andy Crossley (42)

There is no doubt about it, this hurt. Even allowing for the understandable weariness creeping into the bones of a squad playing their sixth game in 20 days, this defeat against a very average Uxbridge side who were sitting just below the home side, and have now taken their 10th place, hit hard. The side from Middlesex are the first this season to score four at the Runnymede Stadium; they were gifted all of them. Losing 0-3 to Kettering Town on Thursday was kind of expected (if still painful) given their desire to seal a play-off place, but this was something else. Early attacking intent showed Uxbridge to be suspect in defence but the continued injury-enforced absence of Ryan O’Toole up front blunted their edge. However, it was a dubious award of a free kick after 29 minutes that caught Egham out, Uxbridge breaking and from a cross Wayne Carter had time and room to tap in. From the kick off Uxbridge won the ball back, attacked, Sarnies’ keeper Jamie Norris tried to hack clear and suffered the mortification of seeing the ball rebound off Matt Woods and into his goal. Andy Crossley saw a goalbound shot cleared before he registered a reply for the Sarnies, twisting round his marker and curling a lovely shot into the bottom right corner of Rouke Pickford’s net. Had there been more of the sort of attacking play that saw Josh Andrew’s 52nd minute run and cross create confusion in the Uxbridge box Egham might have got something out of the game but when, two minutes later, the defence parted like the Red Sea and let Woods in to smash a half volley in from the edge of the box the game was all but up. Crossley curled in a corner kick that hit the far post but the referee had blown for a foul. The same man then played a one-two with Andrew but shot wide. Brendan Matthew had come on for Marcus Moody and stretched the Uxbridge defence with some direct running and another Crossley shot flew across goal but with four minutes of injury time Woods got his hat-trick with a neat finish after linking with Chris Moore. Players and management looked crestfallen. Hopefully they can regroup for the last week of the season; after Ashford there are home games against Daventry Town on Wednesday; Leighton Town visit on Saturday.
Egham need to recover for their Monday meeting with Ashford Town (Mx.), who may, or may not, be facing relegation, depending on whose ill-informed rumours you believe.
The bottom of the table looks like this, after Leighton Town lost 1-4 at Potters Bar Town, Chertsey were whacked 2-7 at Barton Rovers and, more importantly, North Greenford United beat Ashford Town 3-0:

Pos Club P GD Pts
19 Leighton Town 40 -37 28
20 N Greenford 40 -58 26
21 Chertsey Town 40 -75 22
22 Ashford T (Mx.) 40 -74 20

EGHAM TOWN: 1. Jamie Norris 2. Louis Chandler-Joseph 3. Jake Galbraith 4. Arran Taylor-Ives 5. Luke Muldowney 6. Marcus Moody 7. Josh Andrew 8. Joe Chandiram 9. Reis Stanislaus 10. Calvin Thomas 11. Andy Crossley / 12. Jim Ward 14. Brendan Matthew (6/64 mins) 15. Ryan Lake 16. Richie Byrne (Andrew 7/84) 17. Jack McKinlay.