Crowborough Athletic 1 - 3 AFC Croydon Athletic
Crowborough’s tenth game of the season and fifth in the league saw them face last season’s second placed side AFC Croydon Athletic, with the away side showing the quality they possess which produced such a high place finish last season.
The match began evenly with both sides sharing equal amounts of the ball within the first ten minutes. With Crowborough being marginally the better side in possession, the right wing for the hosts provided the most joy with Francis producing three low crosses within the first twelve minutes to ask questions of the Croydon defence.
On the fifteenth minute Pring received the ball outside of the centre circle in the Croydon half, he looked up to find Forster losing his defender running in through on goal. Watson slid in a hopeful challenge taking down Forster for a clear penalty. Duncan converted confidently, sending the keeper in the wrong direction for a deserved lead.
The next ten minutes saw Crowborough grow in confidence with the home side creating an excellent spell of possession. Goldsmith received his fair share of the ball peeling wide from his full back position to effectively play the ball into Mbogba and Forster. However this spell didn’t produce any real chances.
Instead these fell to Croydon, in the 22nd minute Williams weaved in and out of the surrounding blue shirts to drill a low shot slightly wide. Moments later Paxman produced a cross that was headed over from a position where the attacker should have done better.
As the first half entered its final stages, it was clear to see that the visitors had several attacking players with good technical quality but the organisation of Crowborough frustrated the visitors and restricted them to a small handful of chances. After seeing out a dominating spell of possession from Croydon, the home side took the lead into the halftime break.
AFC Croydon Athletic began the second half with real intensity looking to create better opportunities. Their newfound energy at the beginning of the half caught Crowborough off guard and they scored early. Just two minutes after the whistle an intense press from Williams caused the Crowborough centre back to lose possession, the ball fell to Boateng who took an excellent touch to cut across the defender and drilled the ball past Holmwood for the equaliser.
The second goal arrived only three minutes later. Boateng played an inside pass to Williams who chested the ball down to Paxman who with the help of a fortunate deflection scored the third goal of the game.
In the 68th minute a free kick was awarded to the visitors in a tempting position. Bower’s attempt hit the wall with the defection falling perfectly to Paxman who then found Bower’s returning run down the left side of the box, Bower struck a fantastic first time finish to whip the ball across the goal hitting the post before entering the net.
The home side tried to get back into the game. Myongo made an enthusiastic cameo as a substitute, Duncan worked hard trying to create an opportunity and Mbogba had a good game in the centre of the midfield. However the away side was happy to contain Crowborough and see out the remainder of the game for the three points.
