Farnham Town 3-2 Epsom & Ewell

Pre-season Friendly Saturday 2nd July 2022. Report Source: www.eefconline.co.uk. Reporter: Richard Lambert

New era kicks off with narrow defeat. The artificial surface at Kings College in Guildford was the place to be to witness the opening match of the Anthony Jupp and Liam Giles era, although rather disappointingly out of our regular supporters, only two Committee members, plus myself and my boy Nathan were there to witness it in an attendance of 15.

Pre-season friendlies are not for everyone though and of course many players take the field who will never make the first team squad, so maybe some supporters aren’t that concerned! Obviously, due to the time of the season with many players not signed up and the recent departures of Luke Miller and Tommy Smith, I won’t be releasing any names here, except to say that many players were away this week and that out of the twenty-two players present, of whom twenty had a run out, there were only three players on the field who finished the season with us. There were also two former Epsom players on show.

Pre-season friendlies are not for everyone though and of course many players take the field who will never make the first team squad, so maybe some supporters aren’t that concerned! Obviously, due to the time of the season with many players not signed up and the recent departures of Luke Miller and Tommy Smith, I won’t be releasing any names here, except to say that many players were away this week and that out of the twenty-two players present, of whom twenty had a run out, there were only three players on the field who finished the season with us. There were also two former Epsom players on show.

The half time whistle blew immediately after the restart, and both teams changed a number of personnel and in our case, the formation too. This bore fruit within 35 seconds as a smart strike from the left about fifteen yards out put us back on level terms. We then hit the face of the bar with a shot from the left before another shot took a slight deflection and came back off the Farnham post.

Unfortunately a foul just inside the penalty area gave our opponents a spot kick which was converted in the 73rd minute and then two minutes after we had hit the post once again in the 87th minute, Farnham scored a third goal with a fine finish into the top corner from just inside the box.

This third goal was a little harsh on our team, but in the 91st minute we did get a second of our own when our earlier scorer latched on to a fine pass, held off his man and steered the ball under the keeper from an angle about ten yards out for his second of the match. It was the least we deserved, having also hit their woodwork on three occasions during that period!

As always at this stage of the season the performance is more important than the result, but with so many players absent it is hard to say much more than the scoreline was about fair, largely due to Farnham holding a greater balance of play in the first half. Suffice to say our new Management seemed happy enough with the way things went and that’s all that really matters at this point. We move on to meet another Step Five team when we visit Hassocks next Saturday.