Division One (East)
Finchampstead 2 Binfield 1
Saturday, 15 March 2003
Historically meetings between the two old rivals have been keenly contested and this match was certainly no different.
The opening ten minutes saw the somewhat erratic play flow from end to end, with both defences coping well to snuff out anything that came their way, leaving the goalkeepers untroubled. The only goal scoring chance of this opening spell came Finch?s way in the ninth minute when a floated corner from Danny McCarthy dropped onto the penalty spot just in front of the unmarked Andy Knapp, but the Finch skipper just failed to connect cleanly with the ball, allowing it to be scrambled out of touch by the swift reactions of defender Jason Day. Finch opened their account in the twelfth minute when they conjured a goal out of nothing. Danny Humphreys delivered a long throw onto the head of the climbing Bruce Rolls, whose backward flick from the front edge of the six yard box looked to be comfortably dropping to Binfield keeper Keith Strong, but drifted through his hands in the gusting wind and bounced back into the goal off the far post. Both sides played some good football through the middle of the park for the remainder of the half, but never really presented any danger at the end of their build-up play, with Lee Goddard and Jeremy Lynch in heart of the Finch defence, matched in a similar fashion at the other end by Mark Baker and Jason Day. In the thirtieth minute Bruce Rolls skilfully rode the challenge of three defenders and came away with the ball, but instead of laying it off to the better positioned Alan Hawkins or Danny Humphreys, decided to try to beat Keith Strong from twenty yards out, but the keeper easily clutched the ball from the air and threw it quickly up-field to start a good Binfield counter-attacking move that relieved the pressure on his defence.
Half Time: 1-0
The second half was played in a similar vein, with much of the play concentrated in the middle of the park. The opening fifteen minutes was a far from entertaining spectacle, with too many high, hopeful balls being played by both sides, when keeping the ball on the deck and out of the wind might have improved the quality of the football. Finch twice struck the woodwork in a good spell of pressure around the hour mark. Their first chance to add to their score in the fifty-eighth minute came at the end of some excellent cross-field play between Andy Knapp and Bruce Rolls that saw the ball played back across the penalty area to Danny Humphreys, who turned well to send a half-volley rebounding off the right upright from ten yards out. Two minutes later, in almost an identical move involving Bruce Rolls and Andy Knapp saw the latter flash a fierce left foot cross in towards the unmarked Danny Humphreys who was desperately unlucky to again be denied by the same upright as he saw his well placed shot fly back off the foot of the post with Keith Strong well beaten. However in the sixty-fifth minute he at last got his rewards when he timed his run to perfection to meet a great ball played into the box by Bruce Rolls and despatch it firmly into the back of the net whilst the static Binfield defence appealed for an offside decision, which the referee was perfectly placed to judge that Danny Humphreys? goal was good. With the Binfield players clearly rattled, Finch continued to press their advantage and Danny Humphreys nearly added another goal in the seventy-second minute that would have made the game more comfortable for his side, but his effort on the turn clipped the top of the crossbar having been caught on the wind and just failing to dip into the goal underneath the bar.
Binfield pulled a goal back in the seventy-sixth minute from a firmly driven corner from Jason Day, the ball sailing through a packed penalty area and met by either the lowered head or hand of the incoming Nick Kellaway, with Finch?s appeals for hand-ball going unheeded as the referee pointed to the centre circle. Strangely several of the Finch players seemed to run out of steam in the frantic closing ten minutes and this allowed Binfield to win a succession of corners that were somehow cleared to safety as Finch clung onto their slender 2-1 lead. Twice in the closing five minutes Binfield had good chances to level matters as they managed to get clear of the Finch defence, Nick Kellaway driving the ball straight at Stuart Harris as the chasing defence closed in on him in the eighty-fifth minute and Carl Withers sending a timid shot over Stuart Harris that just failed to reach the goal before being gathered off the line by the stretching Finch keeper two minutes later.
The final whistle was a welcome sound for the Finch players and supporters as Finch maintain their four-point lead at the top of the table in their quest for a second successive championship title.
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