Match Report: Fleet Town Success At Home To Corinthian Casuals
Fleet Town took on one of the form sides in the division, Corinthian Casuals, at the Easy as HGV Stadium on Tuesday night. In a competitive match, Fleet Town came out on top to extend their unbeaten run in the league and collect another three points.
In the opening exchanges, early chances fell to Matt Surmon for Fleet, shooting inches wide from twenty five yards and Jonathan Gjoshe for Casuals shot wide from the edge of the box. Fleet Town came close to opening the scoring after twenty minutes when keeper Callum Backhurst kicked the ball long to Chike Kandi who fed Dan Bone to shoot, which was blocked and the ball ran out for a corner to Fleet, Tom Smith delivered the corner over to the far post where Ross Stepney was waiting but his header dropped wide of the post.
But Fleet Town did not have to wait long for the opening goal, after another shot was blocked the ball came back to Chike Kandi and again he played the ball to Dan Bone, who cut in and took the ball round Casuals keeper Murillo Bernardes and knocked it over to Kai Tanner to slide the ball into the net for his first goal for Fleet Town. Fleet had a chance to score again before the break when Matt Surmon knocked the ball behind the Casuals defence for Dan Bone to chase down, Dan reached the ball and got his shot away, but the ball flew over the goal. Fleet held onto their narrow advantage until the break.
The second half saw Corinthian Casuals have more of the ball, with some accurate passing and control in midfield, but good defending and positioning got both sides caught offside time and again, as the half wore on, the frustration of chasing the game led to a string of Yellow cards for the visitors. Fleet Town created a good opening when Nick Medcraft had taken the ball up the right and into the box, he cut the ball back towards the D to Chike Kandi, but his shot over.
The closest that Casuals came to scoring was from an attack that was stopped but the ball came off a Fleet defender and rolled right across the face of the Fleet goal but there were no attackers there to touch the ball in and out rolled on past the goal before going behind for a corner.
Fleet Town got their second goal after 81 minutes, a long ball forward was collected on the left by Dean Rule, he cut in and beat a defender to set up a one -on-one with keeper Bernardes, Rule made no mistake and fired the ball into the net. Four minutes later Fareed Hakeem-Habeeb ran into the box with the ball and Murillo Bernardes closed him down the pair collided and the referee gave Fleet a Penalty, taken by Dean Rule he calmly hit the ball into the bottom right corner just past the outstretched hand of Bernardes who had dived that way.
Fleet Town brought on their latest new signing Matthew Kellet-Smith for his first few minutes following his move from Uxbridge last week. Encouraged by the support of all the travelling Corinthian Ultras, the visitors kept looking to attack but could not find a way to break the Fleet defence and Fleet kept another clean sheet with a 3-0 victory to lift them up a place to 9th in the table.
Line Up : 1 Callum Backhurst, 2 Nick Medcraft, 3 Tom Smith, 4 Josh Stepney, 5 Liam Pestle, 6 Ross Stepney, 8 Matt Surmon, 10 Dean Rule, 17 Kai Tanner, 18 Dan Bone, 19 Chike Tanner.
Subs : 7 Danilo Cadete (on for Rule 89 mins), 9 Tane Cuebo (on for Bone 62 mins), 14 Luke Phair (on for Surmon 82 mins), 15 Matthew Kellett-Smith (on for Ross Stepney 87 mins) 16 Fareed Hakeem-Habeeb (on for Tanner 63 mins)
