Match Report – Fleet Town Hold Off Knaphill To Secure Three Points
Fleet Town put the string of draws this month behind them to return to winning ways against Knaphill on Tuesday night, at the Easy As HGV Stadium, in front of the best league crowd so far this season of 273.. The win extends their unbeaten start to the league season to Eleven games and takes them closer to a potential play off position, still with some games in hand on the six teams above them in the table.
A strong start from Fleet saw them attacking down both wings with Danilo Cadete and Nick Medcraft creating openings as they searched to find a way to penetrate the Knaphill defence. The first good chance came after ten minutes from interplay between Nick Medcraft and Dean Rule down the left, Nick took the ball towards the corner and played the ball across to Dean Rule who had made space to unleash his shot, but Knaphill keeper Sam Gray was able to save this effort. Only a couple of minutes later Tom Smith played the ball down to the left to Lekan Osideko, who crossed into the box to Dean Rule and this time Dean’s shot flew into the net to give Fleet Town the lead. Another chance soon followed, after a Fleet corner Dean Rule and Lekan Osideko combined to play the ball back in, but i was cleared by a defender waiting at the near post. After this Knaphill started to get more into the game, with more possession they were able to threaten the Fleet goal, without coming close until after half an hour when they got the ball to Aiden King, just inside the box near the D, he fired the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal to level the scores. Fleet Town had to survive a difficult ten minutes at the end of the half a player down, as Liam Pestle sat in the Sin Bin, Knaphill piled the pressure on but the Fleet defence stood strong and kept them out to go into the half time break at 1-1.
Fleet Town settled and regrouped over the interval to start the second half stronger and on the attack, Danilo Cadete up the right, crossed in to Nick Medcraft, his shot was cleared only as far as Chike Kandi to run back to the box, looking for options he played the ball out to Dean Rule on the left, who returned the ball back to Chike Kandi, who was now in a position to shoot, but his effort was blocked and cleared. Knaphill were the first to make some changes on the field and the fresher legs of their substitutes added some speed to their break outs or attacks, luckily for Fleet when they did get through, their final shots were mostly off target. Blessing Hambessa was played in but shot over for Knaphill. Fleet created a good opening when Lekan Osideko brought the ball up the left and cut in and shot from a narrow angle, Sam Gray in the Knaphill goal tipped the ball away for a corner to Fleet. The corner was played in and only cleared by Knaphill as far as the waiting Dean Rule, who fired the ball into the goal to put Fleet Town back in front after Sixty-Eight minutes. As another Knaphill attack came to nothing the ball was with Fleet keeper Finlay Purcell, he quickly sent the ball out to Fareed Hakeem-Habeeb who ran up the left and cut in to the box before shooting just inches wide. After Seventy-Nine minutes Fleet won another corner, as this was played into the middle of the box, two players clashed in the middle of the box, the officials ignored the original foul by the defender and sent off Fleet’s Ross Stepney for his reaction to the challenge on him. This decision by the referee left Fleet eleven minutes plus what turned out to be ten minutes added time to survive with only ten players on the pitch. Spurred on by this advantage Knaphill threw everything into looking for another equaliser, although Knaphill had a lot of the ball during this closing stage they could only muster a few shots, the closest efforts came through Jack Baisden and Kacper Nozka, but they rarely needed Finlay Purcell to make a save. Eventually and seemingly reluctantly the referee blew the final whistle to confirm the 2-1 victory and the three points for Fleet Town.
