Opening day delight

An amazing opening day for the Millers as we hit Dereham for SIX on the opening day of the 2018/19 season to go top of the league.

New season and the work for the next nine months started with this game. We had a few making their debuts for the Millers, the likes of Sam Cross, Andy Freeman, Alex Akrofi started and Shad Ngandu and Sam Mvemba came off the bench for their debuts, Harry Gibbs made his second debut for the club too, and scored on his second debut on his 21st birthday.

The Millers started the best and in the end never looked back. Alex Teniola and George Doyle had a couple of good early chances from the edge of the Magpie box but both fired over.

On the 17th minute we took the lead from a corner, it came to Tom Richardson who saw his effort blocked and Harry Gibbs recovered quickest to volley home from close range. Aveley 1-0 Dereham.

Soon after Tom Richardson finished well to double our lead but had it wrongly ruled for offside. Then Alex Akrofi forced Elliot Pride into a good save on the 30 minute mark before Dereham had a glorious chance to equalise from a corner as Frary somehow put his header wide from close range after Crisp flicked the ball onto the back post.

In the 34th minute we doubled our lead, lovely pass into the box found George Doyle who fired across Pride to find the inside of the post to score. Aveley 2-0 Dereham.

Shortly before half-time Freddie Gard put the Millers 3-0 up with a fantastic finish into the bottom corner, hitting the wheel arch which saw the ball come firing out the goal, unfortunately neither the linesmen or the referee saw the ball go into the goal and it remained 2-0.

Half Time | Aveley 2-0 Dereham Town.

The scoreline 2-0 is always a dangerous one, so the Millers scored four goals in the space of 11 minutes to secure the opening day three points.

It took 13 second half minutes for us to get that third goal, George Doyle passed to Freddie Gard who netted from outside the area into the bottom left hand corner. Aveley 3-0 Dereham.

What followed was a crazy eight minutes where the Millers were rampant. Debutante Alex Akrofi showed his class as he sprinted through on goal, seem to lose possession but win it back going round the keeper and tapping into the net from an acute angle to make it four. Aveley 4-0 Dereham.

Two minutes later and it was FIVE! Fantastic work down the left from Chris Bourne centred the ball to Andy Freeman who on his second attempt headed the ball past the keeper for his debut goal. Aveley 5-0 Dereham.

Four minutes after the fifth, we had a chance to grab our sixth and final goal of the game. Alex Akrofi was first to a loose ball took it around the keeper, who took down Akrofi and the referee had no choice but to award the penalty. Tom Richardson stepped up and cooly sent Pride the wrong way and passed the ball into the left hand side of the goal. Aveley 6-0 Dereham.

A few changes followed which saw Sam Mvemba, Shad Ngandu and Calvin Ekpiteta come on and we kept coming at Dereham looking for more goals. Sam Mvemba did well down our left hand side as he beat a couple of players, played it into Tom Richardson who fired at goal, but somehow Pride got down quick enough to sit on the ball to save it.

Andy Freeman received the ball on the edge of the area from Shad Ngandu after clever and quick passing football on the edge of the Dereham area, it saw Andy Freeman curl it just wide of the goal.

In the last minute of three minutes added on time we somehow smacked the woodwork twice. A fantastic bit of skill and effort from Calvin Ekpiteta saw his left footed shot smack the left hand post, it came to Tom Richardson whose effort cracked the underside of the crossbar, it then bounced to Sam Mvemba who, under pressure, headed just over the bar. A crazy ten seconds and no one knew how we didn’t score, but we’ll take the six!

Full Time | Aveley 6-0 Dereham Town.

Attendance | 228

Millers XI | Rhys Madden, Garrett Kelly, Chris Bourne, George Doyle, Harry Gibbs, Sam Cross, Alex Teniola (Sam Mvemba 71), Freddie Gard (Shad Ngandu 71), Tom Richardson, Andy Freeman, Alex Akrofi (Calvin Ekpiteta 77).

Unused Subs | Ryan Cosson, Tim Brown.

Dereham XI | Elliot Pride, Joe Manning, Tom McLeish (Seamus Kelleher 53), David Winton, Ollie Ebbage, Dion Frary, Dylan Edge (Ethan Warne 85), Adam Smith, Ryan Crisp (Karol Wengrzik 45), Daniel Beaumont, Ashley Jarvis.

Unused Subs | Andy Howell, Jake Cox.