Match Report: Fleet Town 1-3 AFC Croydon Athletic
Fleet Town hosted AFC Croydon Athletic in this Combined Counties League match at a packed out Mustard Seed Stadium on Saturday afternoon. With Fleet Town looking for a return to winning ways and Croydon, under ex Fleet Town manager Jermaine McGlashan seeking to advance their play-off hopes, an exciting and close encounter was expected.
Fleet Town carved out the first chance of the afternoon in the second minute when Brad Manning ran forward to collect a long ball, he advanced to the box, with only the keeper to beat, he decided to lob the keeper but the ball stayed high and flew over the bar. It was twenty minutes into the game before the visitors had their fist sight of goal but Daryl Siaw’s effort sailed high over the bar. A couple of minutes later Fleet Town took the lead when Liam Pestle threw himself towards the ball being played in from a free kick and got his head to the ball at the near post, to glance it into the goal. Fleet could have added another a few minutes later, when a fine move between Mihail Marinescu and Brad Manning set up the shooting chance for Jubril Hassan but his shot was saved. As the half progressed the visitors were coming more into the game but their attacks were thwarted by strong defending from Rayon Atkinson, Josh Nunes and Brad Manning and the score remained at 1-0 to Fleet until half time.
Any element of luck deserted Fleet in the second half with the run of the ball favouring AFC Croydon, who were looking more and more dangerous going forward, after 55 minutes an initial shot from Croydon was blocked but the loose ball ran straight to the foot of Pierrick Keuteha, who made no mistake in firing the ball into the net for the equaliser. On 65 minutes Croydon took the lead as Andre Coker found himself totally unmarked in the middle of the box as the ball reached him, he fired it into the bottom corner of the net and ten minutes later Andre Coker took a free kick twenty yards out and curled the ball round the wall into the corner of the goal to make it 3-1 to Croydon. As the sides made more changes, Croydon changed to a more defensive set up to hold onto their lead, allowing Fleet to press on and created a couple of late chances, in added time, with a cross come shot from Sam Marks floated over the bar and right at the end an header from Dan Bone also cleared the crossbar.
Although most of Fleet’s highest home crowd of the season (449) left disappointed, they had witnessed an exciting game, the three points lift AFC Croydon into fifth and a play off position, while Fleet Town drop a place to tenth.
FLEET TOWN:
1 Joel Halliday, 2 Brad Manning, 3 Sam Marks, 4 Josh Nunes, 5 Liam Pestle, 6 Rayon Atkinson, 7 Fareed Hakeem-Habeeb, 8 Matt Surmon, 10 Luke Phair, 12 Jubril Hassan, 17 Mihail Marinescu
SUBS:
9 Louis Blake (on for Hassan 55 mins), 14 James Gorman, 15 Joe Wotton (on for Surmon 65 mins), 16 Naz Miah (on for Hakeem-Habeeb 83 mins), 18 Dan Bone (on for Marinescu 75 mins)
Fleet Town are back in action on Wednesday 7th with an away trip to Croydon to play Balham before a home game at The Mustard Seed Stadium on Tuesday 13th when Alton will be the visitors.
