Epsom take the boot from landlords
Epsom and Ewell 1-2 Corinthian-Casuals, Combined Counties League – Premier Division South. Monday 26th August 2024.
A late rally almost enabled us to take something out of our first Tolworth based local derby, but we were ultimately unable to force an equaliser and had to accept defeat to our landlords and visitors Corinthian-Casuals by two goals to one at the KGF on Monday.
Our club will tell you that we had a good, if slightly inflated attendance of 224 in an attempt to justify switching this match to an afternoon kick-off, but the simple truth is that they still missed out on hundreds of pounds in gate revenue. By moving this match from the original 11.30am kick off, we missed out on at least fifty more spectators, as there were very few morning kick offs around in our area. Our match would easily have been the most interesting of those early kick offs, but instead we had to compete with an almost full Isthmian League programme, including the Kingstonian v Raynes Park Vale derby, plus home matches for Dulwich Hamlet and Horsham, not to mention National League teams Woking and Dorking Wanderers. Not a smart move, but they’ll still try to justify it! Quite simply, our club needs to learn to leave our rare 11.30 matches alone and if they are genuine about getting more supporters in, then to consider different kick off times to the masses on more regular occasions, not less. Running out of programmes half an hour before kick-off won’t endear the club to “floaters” either!
Our line up was still missing Toby Young who completed his three game suspension in this match in addition to the injured Reece Tierney and Fabian Nunes, while Will Kendall was also absent. Carl Oblitey came in up front in Kendall’s position and played alongside Ali Fofahan who had made a promising debut at Sandhurst Town on Tuesday. Felipe de Lima continued in place of Nunes as he had done on Tuesday, while Ethan Brazier was moved to the bench with his place being taken by new signing from Guildford City, Sabek Mohssine, who had a fairly uneventful hour before being replaced by another debutant in Sean Anderson.
In truth this match followed a similar pattern to many of our others this season, in that we have competed fairly well against opponents, only for errors to cost us, and this would be the case again in a match that was niggly at times, but swung both ways and was entertaining with lots of half-chances. We had the first of those when a hopeful ball was dropped into the Casuals penalty area, where their keeper and a defender almost left to it to each other, but instead the ball fell to Callum Wilson, only his shot at a half vacant goal from just eight yards was scuffed and easily cleared by the covering defender. The ball was only half cleared to Fofahan whose strike skimmed inches over the crossbar from 18 yards.
Although we had chances, our opponents had the greater share of possession, particularly in the opening half and they responded with a low shot just wide of Dan O’Donovan’s goal, before a free kick from Diogo Da Silva was straight at our man between the posts. He was in action shortly afterwards as a deep delivery was punched away from an unmarked Casuals player waiting at the far post before Jonathon Gjoshe sent a shot in that just cleared our own crossbar.
In response Oblitey produced a good run and low shot that was a couple of feet wide of the near post before an Adam Green free kick was cleared away which led to a counter attack from the most dangerous player on the pitch Shea Cascoe-Rogers, but Green had recovered well to make the tackle back. Fofahan was then booked for a foul on Cascoe-Rogers and we nearly conceded from a deep free kick when two of our defenders combined to get in each other’s way, luckily knocking the ball out for a corner, just wide of our own post. However, in the 42nd minute we went behind. The visitors advised that the goal was scored by their number 4 Tommy Castelo, but it was actually headed past O’Donovan by our own number 4, Adam Green from close range, giving him no chance!
It had been coming though, as they were finishing the stronger of the teams and although Fofahan had his shirt pulled in the visiting penalty area, nothing was given, before a Luke Miller header was then caught at full stretch by Murillo Bernardes and we went in at the break a goal down.
The second half continued in a similar fashion, concentrated mostly in midfield and Sabek picked up our second yellow card for pulling back an opponent before being replaced by Anderson. However, seconds later with the clock showing the 62nd minute, a straightforward long ball went over Wilson and with no cover, Raf Barbosa had the simple task of squaring the ball to the far post where Reyon Dillon was able to tap the ball into the net from a few yards out to give Corinthian-Casuals a two goal lead.
We weren’t quite done yet though and began to push the “visitors” back on their home patch. In the 72nd minute I’m still not sure how we failed to get the ball in the net after Miller knocked the ball through for Anderson who lobbed the ball over the advancing Bernardes. Oblitey got to the ball in first, some four yards out, yet his touch then knocked the ball onto the shoulder of Marcos dos Santos and looped just over the bar like a Olympic high jumper. In fact, the only thing in the net after this was dos Santos who required a bit of treatment!
For some reason and despite Dos Santos being off the field after the treatment, we chose to take a short corner. It wasn’t a good one and led to a counter-attack which required O’Donovan to keep us in the game with a good save. The next time, the ball got past O’Donovan, although Ethan Nelson-Roberts was there instead to clear the danger. Casuals chances kept coming though and in the 81st minute Frazier Osunkoya struck a shot against our bar with the ball coming down and being cleared. However, it then came back in and a cross from the left to the far post was met by a powerful close range strike from Cascoe-Rogers, but O’Donovan made another fine save to keep the ball out.
Opportunities were coming for our boys too as the game began to get more stretched, and a nice pass from Wilson put Anderson through one on one with Bernardes, but his touch was heavy and the keeper was able to clear. We then lost De Lima temporarily with what appeared to be something in his eye, but even though we were down to ten men at this point, we then pulled a goal back as a ball over the top was latched onto by Miller as our opponents appeared to stop, and he ran in on goal from the left before cutting back onto his right foot to take the keeper out of the equation before firing into the roof of the net from eight yards in the 88th minute.
This goal led to our opponents getting a little twitchy and they picked up a yellow card for delaying a throw in before Bernardes got another for wasting time himself. Time was running out, although we had a final chance when Fofahan put Oblitey through to find the bottom corner, only for the Assistant’s flag to be raised against him for offside. After seven minutes of injury time the whistle blew to confirm that the points had been lost.
So it’s now a fourth straight League defeat and Spelthorne Sports’ draw with Knaphill leaves us alone at the bottom of the table once again. We could argue with some justification that we were worth a draw in both of our recent losses, but blaming the referee for our League position as our unknown club reporter does is disingenuous and we will need to find a way out of this before we find ourselves in a similar position to last season when we lost our opening seven League matches of the season. Two tough home matches are up next, so we quite simply have to improve or that dreaded “R” word will start cropping up again in supporter conversations.
Epsom & Ewell: Dan O’Donovan, Stefan Aiwone, Callum Wilson, Adam Green (c), Felipe De Lima, Craig Dundas, Luke Miller, Sabek Mohssine, Carl Oblitey, Ali Fofahan, Ethan Nelson-Roberts
Subs: Sean Anderson for Mohssine (61), Axel Kodjo for Dundas (73)
Report Source: www.eefconline.co.uk
