Southern Combination League Premier Division
The Polegrove, Bexhill-on-Sea
Admission: £6.00
Programme: £1.50
Attendance: 150
After the miserable weather which has decimated my local midweek options in December and January, it was a relief that much milder and drier conditions are now prevailing across the south-east England, ensuring that there would be no danger of this game not going ahead, for my second consecutive midweek game in Bexhill.
A glance at the league table ahead of kick off suggested that this would be a close encounter between two evenly matched teams. Bexhill came into this game in eighth place, following 12 wins and two draws from their 23 league games played so far, and were one place and two points ahead of Crowborough, who had played a game less. They have won ten and drawn six of their 22 league games. They were in decent form, winning three of their last four league games, as well as winning at Peacehaven & Telscombe in the Sussex Senior Cup, while Bexhill had an impressive 2-0 win at home to Newhaven on Saturday, four days after I watched Newhaven comprehensively defeat Little Common.
As this was a rearranged fixture, with the originally scheduled game on 17th December having to be postponed, the programme from that day was used today, with a four page insert bringing the various stats and facts up to date. Well, in theory - the league table was strangely very much out of date.
Not unusually for an evening at The Polegrove, what seemed like relatively mild conditions on my way to the ground turned into feeling very chilly in a stiff breeze. The game almost had an explosive start, when Harry Forster drove in from the left and from the edge of the area, struck a powerful shot across the keeper which hit the crossbar and went over. That was something of a false dawn in terms of excitement though, as this was not a game that will live long in the memory in all honesty, being mostly a midfield battle not helped by the relatively usual hard and bobbly pitch at The Polegrove. The visitors looked the more threatening throughout the first half, but despite some presentable chances at either end, the game remained goalless at the break.
The second half was more of the same, until the visitors scored what turned out to be the winning goal on 72 minutes. After a Bexhill substitute who had just come on second before rather agriculturally but not maliciously flattened a Crowborough player, Forster curled the free kick into the box, Lucan Murrain headed the ball on towards the back post, and Harvey Killick tapped the ball home at full stretch at the back post. There was no protests from the Bexhill players, but a video replay showed that Killick was clearly offside when the ball was headed on. Although Crowborough certainly had a slice of luck there, overall they deserved enough to earn the three points, which was enough to lift the Crows above Bexhill and into eighth place.
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