South Berkshire returned to action at Cantley Park for matchday 6 with their fixture against Eastcote, looking for payback after being beaten twice last season from today’s opposition.
Team news for this week was the late withdrawal of number one keeper David Baines , giving Sam Moors his second start of the season and still missing Badley, Burley and Eatwell.
The game kicked off in bright sunshine with Eastcote having to stop an early attack from Kaplanski and Patel on the edge of the D.
On three minutes Peter Swan picked up the ball just inside the Eastcote D ,held off four Eastcote players before firing the ball to Ravi Patel standing in the middle of the goal to slide the ball into the net ,1-0.
After six-minutes South Berks had another good chance of scoring with a Paul Kaplanski cross passing just behind Jack Baveystock and just in front of Swan.
With 8 minutes gone Eastcote had their first meaningful attack on the South Berks goal, gaining a short corner, which was converted into goal with a low shot hitting the back of the Berks net giving Moors no hope of saving ,1-1.
Within a two minutes Ravi Patel shot low into the side netting of the Eastcote goal, from the clearance of this attack Captain Ollie Bruce intercepted the pass out and drove forward passing the ball to an onrushing Alex Sykes, who knocked the ball on to Tom King on the by-line, who himself passed the ball to Patel again lurking in the middle of the goal to smash home his second goal of the game ,2-1 .
For the next 10 minutes it was all South Berkshire with three short corners being won and a shot just wide from a flying Kaplanski on the left-hand post, but the score line remained at 2-1.
With 22 minutes on the clock Eastcote had a rare attacked with a shot going just wide. South Berks then had the best of the game of the next 10 minutes with Tom King failing to connect to a Baveystock cross ,again another Baveystock cross passed between Swan and Kaplanski in the D. Baveystock himself missed a chance with the Keeper saving his shot just in front of goal and with Sam Fox Harvey Shooting high over the bar a minute later ,were South Berkshire going to regret missing all these opportunities ?
Just before halftime Sam Moors produced three fine saves ,one from the left, one right and one just in front of his goal to keep the game at 2-1 for South Berkshire at the interval .
Eastcote came out in the second half a different time ,for the first 5 minutes of the second half they applied pressure on the Berks goal gaining their first short corner of the second half on 40 minutes. Again, Moors kept Berks in the lead with a good save from the incoming shot ,but a second short corner being awarded straight away with this one ending up in the back of South Berkshires goal from a powerful shot from the top of the D low to Moors right in a carbon copy of Eastcote’s first goal,2-2.
Two minutes later all the missed chances in the first half from South Berks looked like they may be costly as following another short corner, Eastcote took the lead 2-3,were the wheels going to come off the bus again like last week at Haslemere ?
It looked very likely as on 48 minutes again, Moors had to save on his near post and two minutes later a fantastic double save including running back from the edge of the D to block a shot in front of goal to kept Berks in the game .
Step forward Ravi Patel ,who dived in front of the Eastcote goalkeeper following a hard low cross from the right by Bruce to turn in his third and draw the game level at 3-3.
On 54 minutes Kaplanski had a goal chalked off and Swan hit the post with a first time shot from near the by-line, with Eastcote forcing Moors into another save and shooting wide again in an attack ,the game was on!
To make matters worse for Berks, Green cards for Sam Piller on 55 minutes and just as he was coming back into the game a Green card for Neil Bennett on 57 minutes, but Eastcote were unable to take advantage of the greater numbers on the pitch.
The wheels were finally put back on the bus on the hour, when Skipper Bruce again blocked a pass out of defence and drove forward to the D ,turning a pass across goal to Kaplanski who sliding attempt on goal was stopped by the keeper ,only for the ball to bounce out to Fox-Harvey who passed back to Kaplanski on the far post to turn the ball in for his ninth goal of the season and Berks forth ,4-3 .
The South Berkshire bus was now going full throttle ,firstly winning a short corner on 64 minutes which after the ball pinging around in front of goal ,Ollie Bruce turned the ball in on the post 5-3,then a minute later Sam Fox-Harvey hitting the back of the net with a high shot following great closing down of the Eastcote defence by Patel and Baveystock ,6-3. Three minutes passed and Ravi Patel hit South Berkshire 7th and his fourth of the day with a close finish after a cross field run from Kaplanski passing the ball to Sykes in the D whose shot was saved by the keeper only for the ball to fall to Patel who lifted the ball over the goalie 7-3.
Still Eastcote had a little fight left in them with Moors again saving an attack on his goal and then having to protect his goal from another short corner . In the last-minute Tom King got a Green card and Eastcote a final short corner which came to nothing despite having all their players around the D .
Final score South Berkshire 7-3 Eastcote ,a grand day out.
SB Men’s 2nd earn a hard-won point at home to Henley, Des Saunders and Marcus Longfield scoring in a 2-2 draw.
SB Men’s 3rd won away at Sonning 2-0 ,Tom Pullen and Peter de Lange getting the goals
SB Mens 4th matched the 1st teams score of 7-3 with a home win against Wallingford, Mike Baylis with 3 , Tom Scott with two and Duncan Clarke and Adrian Tang with one each. Thats now 26 games without defend for the 4th team.
SB Men’s 5th Hit 5 without reply at Slough for a 5-0 win, Luke Barnard with 3 ,Greg Bertolino and Graeme Aldous with one each.
SB Men’s 6th were unfortunate to lose 1-2 at home to Phoenix, James Gibbs the goal scorer.
SB Vets drew 1-1 away at Epsom .
SB Ladies 1st Won 1-0 away at Wallingford ,Sarah Kelly getting her fifth goal of the season
SB Ladies 2nd won 2-1 at home against Henley ,Emily Powell with two
SB Ladies 3rd lost away at Oxford Uni 1-6 ,Maxine Nienaber getting the away goal
SB Ladies 4th won 2-0 at home against Sonning ,Eliza Mawdsley and Olivia Deakin both getting their first goals of the season .
SB Ladies 5th also won 2-0 away at Wycombe ,Lyndall Halkyard getting both goals
The Men’s 1st team hold 3rd place in their division ,4 points off the top .
The 2nd team are 11th with just two points so far but are still above Thame .
The 3rd team are 4th, 6 points off top spot.
The 4th team are top by 5 points
The 5th team are 2nd , three points behind Stoke Green but have a game in hand
The 6th team are 6th , 3 points above bottom placed Newbury.
The Ladies 1st are 3rd ,2 points behind leaders Reading
The 2nd team are a midtable 6th ,6 points from the top
The 3rd team are 11th just above Bicester .
The 4th team are 8th with 6 points from their 6 games so far
The 5th team are 2nd ,but only on goal difference from Staines
Next week’s home games are
@ Cantley Ladies 5th v Iver 10.30
Ladies 3rd v Milton Keynes 12.00
Ladies 1st v Staines 13.30
Mens 5th v Newbury 15.00
@ Birch Hill Men’s 3rd v Slough 13.00
Men’s Vets v Haslemere 14.30
Teams traveling away are
Mens 1st v Wycombe 14.30
Mens 2nd v Bicester 13.00
Mens 4th v Wycombe 12.00
Mens 6th v Marlow 11.30
Ladies 2nd v Marlow 12.45
Ladies 4th v Wycombe 13.30
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