MISSED CHANCES COST CROWS DEAR IN THE END.
By Malcolm Boyes
Melksham Town progress to the FA Vase 5th round after beating the Crows 2-1 at Oakfields Stadium.
Opportunity missed may be?The Crows missed an opportunity to progress to the 5th round of the Buildbase FA Vase after suffering a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the home club, Melksham Town. First half missed chances, including a penalty miss, and a below-par second half performance, eventually led to the Crows bowing out of the tournament.
The team arrived at the newly built and impressive Oakfields Stadium in good time, having travelled from Crowborough in a smart Executive Coach and with plenty of supporters on board too. Many other Crow supporters made the journey over to Wiltshire under their own steam and their numbers swelled the attendance to an impressive 686, which as it turned out, was the highest attendance on the day for all the FA Vase matches played in the 4th round.
I won't do a full match report here as there's an independent and detailed match report which can be found at http://kentishfootball.co.uk/news/melkcrow060117 written by Stephen McCartney. The report makes it quite clear that the Crows should have been 2-0 up at least by half time as they were the dominant side and looking far more incisive than the home side. However, the chances they had were not taken and you then begin to wonder if those misses will come back to haunt you later on.
At the break even some of the home fans commented that we're far the better footballing side and the home side are lucky still to be in the game. Whilst it was a nice compliment, the fact that the score was still 0-0 did little to calm the nerves.
For some reason the Crows were not as dominant in the second half as the first and didn't create as many chances whilst also being not as fluent. There's no doubt that the home side upped their tempo and pushed another couple of players forward to support their target man and captain, Higden, a bit more.
Their game is based on getting the ball forward as quickly as possible from anywhere on the pitch and it definitely suits the players they have, being a side that has height and physicality throughout. There's no right or wrong way to play the beautiful game and everyone has the right to play the way they want and as they seem to win more than they lose, who can argue that it definitely suits them.
The home side took the lead in the 61st minute following a period of pressure when Perrott's shot on the angle hit the far post and rolled across the goal and in to the net. It was practically the first clear chance they had and those missed chances by the Crows had certainly come back to bite them.
In an effort to get back in the game Pearson was replaced by Clarke and later on Perry came on for Carrington. The Crows were awarded a second penalty, in the 78th minute, when a surging forward run in to the area by Walder saw him brought down by a Melksham defender, the assistant referee giving the penalty, although it wasn't clear if he was flagging for a corner at the time. After a discussion with the referee the penalty was awarded and was calmly despatched by Perry in to the corner of the net for 1-1.
With most of the spectators thinking that a period of extra-time was looming the home side scored the winner in the 83rd minute, another long ball was played forward and resulted in a corner for the home side. Unfortunately, the corner was not cleared by the Crows and the ball fell to one of the Melksham Town substitutes, Bole, on the edge of the area and his shot appeared to take a deflection before nestling in the corner of the Crows goal for 2-1.
Queue wild celebrations by the home players and their fans at the final whistle whilst all those who were supporting the Crows were left somewhat deflated and feeling hard done by perhaps. Unfortunately, not scoring when you are on top can, and often does, cost you dear and this was certainly the case in this game.