Wickers record narrow win

On a still evening with a glorious full moon in the sky, Wick collected their fourth consecutive win against a game Worthing United side. It was Kieron Playle-Howard who drove a stake through the home team’s heart with a rasping shot from 25 yards that beat keeper Taylor Seymour with 3 minutes showing on the clock. It was something special but it needed something special to defeat the young goalkeeper who had an outstanding match.

Terry Dodd, an experienced centre forward who has plenty of higher level experience but is feeling his way back after serious injury, made his eagerly anticipated debut and almost marked it with a goal. On 14 minutes he rose to meet a cross from the left and his well-directed header was arrowing towards the top left hand corner of the goal. We thought it was in but Seymour sprung from nowhere to produce an outstanding one handed save. Wick had the ball in the net through David Crouch 12 minutes later but that was flagged for offside. KPH scored and Wick again were close to doubling their lead minutes before the interval when a clever interchange between George Bingham and David Crouch lead to Crouch’s cross finding Bingham again, in the area, only for George’s shot to shot to be saved by Seymour. Wick had played particularly well in the last 5 minutes of the second half and fully deserved the lead, some of the football being in the ‘best of the season category’ so far.

The second half featured a more determined performance from Worthing United who put behind them the ‘horror’ of an 8-1 home defeat to Bexhill United on Saturday. A 1-0 scoreline is always somewhat precarious and they almost produced a ‘shock’ equaliser when a long ball from Jordan Layton released striker Kieran Deacon whose effort was magnificently blocked by Nathan Ediker with just 5 minutes to go. There was still time for Seymour to produce a superb double save from Playle-Howard and then Thetford before the whistle blew.

Undoubtedly the acquisitions of Terry Dodd and George Bingham has added quality to the team and the winning run has restored confidence to the team. A winnable fixture at Billingshurst on Saturday is followed by testing home encounters with Alfold and then Chatham based team Lordswood in the FA Vase. The latter two fixtures will give us a measure of the full potential of this team.

Wick Man of the Match: Plenty of candidates with Jack Cole, Kieron Playle-Howard and George Bingham exerting plenty of influence of the game but for a solid performance for breaking up play in the middle my vote goes to Dean Janman.

Wick; Belcher, Chaplin, Church, G.Bingham, Cox, Ediker, Janman, Playle-Howard, Dodd, Crouch, Cole. Subs: Hand, Thetford (Not Used): Weir, Kew, Hope

Courtesy of Steve Cox