A LATE ARRIVAL BUT CROWS GET THE POINTS.
By Malcolm Boyes
Sam Cole slots home the winner in the 90+1 minute for the Crows to get a 1-0 win.
Substitutions made a difference.After four games in eight days where the Crows weren't at their best at home against Erith Town but won, played a lot better but lost on the Tuesday at home to Croydon FC, then faced another home game on Thursday against promotion rivals Whitstable Town where they dominated the visitors but ended up losing 1-0. Finally, they played the fourth game away at Glebe FC and whilst not playing as well as they had against the Trams or the Oystermen, they came away with the points when
Sam Cole tapped home the winner from a couple of yards out after great work by Attwood in added-on time, just when everyone thought the game was going to finish 0-0.
As for the match overall, it was definitely not a classic and was quite a hard watch in truth. The home team haven't won at home for three months and were determined to at least get a point out of this game, if they couldn't get all three.
Therefore, they set themselves up to be difficult to beat, competitive all over the pitch, closing the Crows down as quickly as they could whenever we had the ball. They had a "no one shall pass" attitude and it didn't just relate to their defending as the ball was launched high and far whenever it was cleared in or around their penalty area.
The Crows should have taken the lead in the 4th minute when Treleaven intercepted a poor back pass by Jonah and bore down on goal however, Ohman saved his shot with his legs and the chance went begging.
Chances after that were few and far between for either side and the next bit of excitement for the crowd didn't happen until the 30th minute, Smith, who was sent off against us when playing for Rusthall in November, received a yellow card for disputing a throw-in, a booking that was to cost him dear later-on.
Carrington was the next player to incur the wrath of the referee, despite being awarded a free-kick for him, he was shown a yellow card for a tackle after the whistle had blown in the 37th minute. The next 9 minutes didn't yield anymore chances and the half-time whistle went with a 0-0 score-line.
The second-half started in the same vein as the first, every challenge seemed to result in a free-kick being awarded by the referee, who, in my personal opinion, was too fussy and never gave the game chance to flow or for any team to get any momentum going.
After 60 minutes the Crows replaced Carrington and Stone with Phipp and Attwood respectively and with Phipp on the pitch our passing improved whilst Attwood's movement started to worry the home side's defence.
Obasa for Glebe and Ellis for the Crows were the next two players to see yellow after they collided inside the Crows area and decided to have their own little chat, something the referee objected to and they had to take their punishment in the 68th minute. A further 2 minutes later the Crows went down to 10 players, Appiah receiving two yellow cards for dissent for the same foul and therefore, seeing the red card, not the smartest thing to have happened at the time.
However, parity was soon restored in the 74th minute when Smith tackled Phipp after he'd cleared the ball and was shown another yellow card, so subsequently got the red, which made the one for dissent in the first-half a rather stupid booking.
One could feel it wasn't going to be the Crows day when in most people's opinion Treleaven was brought down inside the area by a Glebe defender in the 80th minute but the referee waived away any complaints by the away side. Then in the 83rd minute Attwood had a header cleared off the line by a defender, oddly enough some people from Glebe thought it was over the line and some from Crowborough said it wasn't, not something that happens that often.
As a last throw of the dice saw White go off and Vickers come on in the 87th minute and by now it was the Crows who were swarming around the Glebe penalty-area. Eventually, the pressure told, the ball being played in to Attwood who controlled the ball, turned and put a low cross in between the 'keeper and the six yard box, which went right across the goal and found Cole standing at the back post for a tap-in from two yards out, 1-0 to the Crows.
Even then there was time for another yellow card to be waived by the referee, Sing being the culprit for another late tackle on Phipp. Still, it was the Crows who were celebrating in the 90+5 minute when the final whistle blew and my personal choice for Man of the Match went to
Tom Boddy who never put a foot wrong during the whole game.