Broadbridge Heath 0-2 Peacehaven & Telscombe

For the match against 2nd placed Peacehaven & Telscombe, Heath welcomed back Michael Chester & Jamie Robinson who both missed the midweek trip to Three Bridges but were without Stuart Chester away on a week’s vacation and George Cousins completing the third of his three match suspension.

The visitors have had a great start to the season and were close to taking the lead in the first minute of play when a free kick was floated into the Heath penalty area where a Peacehaven player out-jumped the Heath defence to put a header just over the bar. In the 13th minute Peacehaven’s Frazer Massen’s goalbound shot from the edge of the penalty area hit his team-mate Marcus Richmond on the back and was deflected wide of goal, while at the other end Heath’s top-score Devon Fender’s shot was saved comfortably by Eriksen Aga the visitors keeper.

The opening goal came in the 16th minute and it was a really soft one to give away, Richmond had the ball in the Heath penalty area but was going nowhere until a clumsy challenge by Martyn Flack brought the player down and Cameron Wilshire slammed home the spot kick. The visitors doubled their lead 8 minutes later when the Heath defence failed to clear a Wilshire corner and Massen drilled a low shot through a crowded penalty area giving Chester no chance of stopping, so 2-0 to the visitors at the break and few could argue they didn’t deserve it.
Kyle Sim came on for Heath for the start of the second period replacing centre-back Dan Attwater who struggled throughout the half having missed the previous 5 matches through injury, and it was a much improved performance but with very few chances by either side, the best of which came in the 75th minute when Shaun Findlay received the ball from Darren Helsdown and from 15 yards he brought it down off his chest and hit it first time only to see Aga make a brilliant diving save to his left to earn his clean sheet for the day.

After the game Heath Manager Steve Painter said “there were very few positives to take from the game, probably the best news was seeing Scott Weller come off the bench for the final 10 minutes”, he’s missed the last 9 weeks through injury but with Weller and other players on their way back including George Cousins, Stuart Chester, Rob Godfrey, Dan Sandell and possibly a new signing as well, Painter will be hoping that by the time he plays his next league match (28th Oct) his team will be much stronger and start moving up the division.

Team: M. Chester, Eckana, Robinson, Attwater (Sim 46), Flack, Howard-Bold, Helsdown, Parsons, Fender, Findlay, Martin (Weller 80).