Match Report: Fleet Town 3-2 Guildford City
On Saturday afternoon Fleet Town welcomed Guildford City to The Mustard Seed Stadium for this Combined Counties League match, in front of their best attendance of the season so far (473) on this Non League Day, where supporters of Premier League sides are encouraged to support one of their local non-league sides.
Fleet Town had the better of the early exchanges with Dan Bone, Mihail Marinescu, Brad Manning and Tommy Whitby having half chances in the first ten minutes but their efforts were blocked or saved. After a quarter of an hour, a long ball from Josh Nunes was played over the top into the path of Dan Bone, he rushed onto the ball and took it up to the corner, from where he crossed the ball to the far post where Tommy Whitby was waiting to slide the ball in and put Fleet ahead. After 28 minutes Guildford got the ball in the net and had started celebrating before becoming aware of the assistant having his flag raised for offside and the goal was not given. Guildford were looking more dangerous as they fought their way back into the game, a ball forward from Jaime Hilton found Ben Mitchell, he ran into the box and Fleet keeper Filip Chalupniczak spread himself but Mitchell ran into him and fell over an out stretched arm and the referee awarded Guildford a Penalty, Ben Mitchell stepped up to take the kick himself and made no mistake in powering the ball into the net to level the score on 36 minutes. The score remained at 1-1 until half time.
Dan Bone and Tom Whitby both had attempts blocked by the Guildford defence, but Guildford City were having one of their better games after some poor defeats and took the lead after 78 minutes when a cross found Ben Mitchell at the far post to head the ball into the net. Guildford then could have killed the game off, Ben Mitchell made space for himself in the box and danced his way past two Fleet defenders before setting up Jaime Hilton, but Jaime, with open goal in front of him, he fired wide from close range and the chance passed. With time running out Fleet got back on top, a break and run from Mihail Marinescu was stopped when he came down in the box, with everyone expecting a penalty, the referee instead produced a yellow card for Marinescu. On 90 minutes Fleet had a corner and as the ball was on its way a Guildford defender pushed a Fleet player to the ground at the near post and this time the referee had no alternative but to give Fleet a Penalty, taken by Dan Bone the Guildford keeper Mac Chisholm dived the right way but the ball just eluded him and nestled in the net as Fleet equalised. The referee found a lot of time to add on with Fleet piling the pressure on a scramble in the box saw the ball stabbed towards the goal, with Fleet claiming it was over the line, Guildford got the ball away and behind and only a corner was given. Taken by Joe Wotton the ball over to the far post was met by the head of Josh Nunes down into the ground and guided into the goal by Dan Bone for a winning goal in the seventh minute of added time. Fleet had to survive another couple of minutes of added time before the final whistle was blown and Fleet had completed the comeback from behind and secured the three points.
FLEET TOWN:
1 Filip Chalupniczak, 2 Fareed Hakeem-Habeeb, 3 Bradley Pegg, 5 Josh Nunes, 7 Brad Manning, 8 Luke Phair, 9 Dan Bone, 10 Matt Surmon, 14 Tommy Whitby, 17 Mihail Marinescu, 18 Jim Ward (C)
SUBS:
4 Argjend Ahmetaj (on for Phair 56 mins), 11 Will McDonald (on for Whitby 70 mins), 12 Joe Wotton (on for Marinescu 81 mins), 6 Ahmed Haidary (not used), 16 Ed Scott (not used)
Next Saturday (30th) Fleet Town will be playing away at Colliers Wood United in the league.
