V's lose 2-1 at home to Seaford Town FC

We have have a bit of a stop start last few weeks, well more stop to be honest with our game against St Francis cancelled and then our match abandoned last week, so we came into the match a little bit rusty and with a few too many players looking like Christmas had arrived a week early. A few players on both teams were missing as they had mysterious migraines or heavy colds so it was with slightly weakened teams that both Seaford and the V's started. We gave a debut to young Harry Couchman up front and Seaford had a couple of 16 year olds on the bench, who both got on, so it was a day for youth.
 
We started well and Arnie, sweating out some Christmas cheer, got on the end of a cross and neatly lobbed the keeper. We were knocking the ball around nicely and in control of the game creating a few half chances and it seemed just a matter of time before we would get the second goal. However, football doesn't work like that and Seaford were diligently and patiently going about their business and clearly had a game plan as they sat deep and defended resolutely.
 
We kept pushing forward and from a corner we won Seaford cleared the ball up the pitch. George Warren attacked a bouncing ball but unfortunately lost possession. Seaford quickly capitalised and a lovely through ball was well controlled by  Alexander Rainford who ran clear of our defence and tucked the ball away in the bottom corner. A goal can invigorate a team and unfortunately for us it was Seaford who had a skip in their step, as they realised they could break through our defence. Ten minutes later again from our own corner we conceded almost an identical goal as the ball broke fee, Seaford counter attacked and despite Tom Bradford's best attempts the ball was slotted home by Alexander Rainford for his brace and a 2-1 lead at half-time.

In the clubhouse an excited man came up to me and said you have made my day, I can't believe it. In the programme I had put a photo of a little football figure found in the game Striker a classic 1970's table football game, where you pressed the players head and his leg moved to kick the ball. High tech stuff. "You'll never guess but I was the boy on the cover of the box.' I was astonished and took one step back and despite the fact the box lid is from 40 years ago I could see it was in fact him. He told me he had been a child model back in the day. I'm guessing he was the lad on the right of the box in the yellow t-shirt.

By the way his son was the lad who had scored both goals against us, so I'm glad it was the photo I had put in the programme that had made his day rather than his son scoring a brace. It was a pleasure to speak to him and we even discovered we went to the same nightclub in Sidcup back in the days of jazz funk.

Needless to say I have deviated from the fact we were losing and I did wonder if Kev would make any changes which he did bringing on Chad, who had been unlucky to be on the bench. The second half was a matter of when we were going to score as we relentlessly attacked the opposition penalty box but Seaford had other ideas, stood firm, rode their luck a couple of times, and managed to see us off to, win 2-1. We were a tad disappointed to say the least, as to lose to the only two shots on our goal was not the sort of Christmas cracker we were expecting but good luck to Seaford they came with a plan and did their job.

We remain in the top four, which when you consider we were bottom four this time last season is a remarkable achievement by Kev and the squad. Hopefully we can now get into a rhythm of matches starting with a win away at Hailsham next week.

Happy Christmas to one and all.