Division One - Fleet Spurs 1 Laverstock & Ford 2 (01/02/22)
For those readers who can remember 20th century home entertainment technology, describing Spurs’ starting eleven each game is a bit like a stuck record. Five of their team had not started in Saturday’s game against Andover. Contrast that with Lavvy’s squad, which has hardly changed all season. The greater cohesion of the Wiltshire side, bred from their players’ familiarity with each other, showed for most of the game and they merited their victory, although the north Hampshire side made them work to the very end to earn all three points.
For once, Fleet started better than their opponents and it was no surprise when they took the lead after 11 minutes. Lee Bush put in an excellent left-footed – of course - cross after combining with Sam Knight and Kai Francis rose at the near post to head the ball accurately into the corner past the helpless Alexis Auger’s left hand. Stung by this reverse, the Bulldogs came strongly into the game and seven minutes later equalised. Archie Lovegrove ran on to an excellent through ball over the home defence and sent the ball in a perfect parabola over Aaron Bufton and into the net. That sent his goal tally for the season up to 18, one ahead of his colleague Russell Jones. At half-time some of the sporting Lavvy committee members said that they felt that the scorer might have been a touch offside, but the linesman’s flag had stayed down. Lovegrove’s personal lead only lasted for quarter of an hour, as Jones too notched his 18th, taking advantage of hesitation in the home defence. He was slightly fortunate to benefit from a couple of ricochets, but deserved his reward because of his persistence in pursuing what looked like a lost cause. For the rest of the half, the visitors were the only team in the game, and the half-time whistle came as a relief to Spurs.
After the break, and no doubt the customary words of wisdom from their management team, Fleet came out with much more purpose and the game settled down with both defences on top. For a while it looked as if the game might peter out, but after a couple of well-timed substitutions in the last half-hour of the game, the Hampshire side regained the initiative that they had lost in the first half and pressed hard for an equaliser. Keeper Auger was called into action to make some smart saves, first tipping a looping header from Francis over the bar and then blocking a fiercely-struck net bound drive from Roberto dos Santos. So 2-1 it remained, and the visitors breathed a communal sigh of relief at the final whistle.
Although Spurs will be disappointed to have lost two home games in three days, they can take pride and comfort in the fact that they were able to hold the new league leaders, Andover Town, and now fifth-in-the-table Laverstock to a margin of one goal. They are a far better side than the one that went to The Dell early in the season and were deservedly thrashed 6-1. Their skill has improved and their resilience is now outstanding. Credit to joint managers Scott Kemp and Suj Khera, who have built a half-decent team out of nothing. The disappointment from their point of view is that they are able to get close to excellent teams such as these, but not quite to cross the line to victory or even a draw. Their main deficiency is in goal-scoring, averaging less than a goal or game. Can they hope to remedy this deficiency when they entertain New Milton Town on Saturday (kick-off 3:00)? After that match they face the long trip to Downton next Tuesday evening (kick-off 7:45).
