The score line does not tell the most accurate story of this affair. There was certainly less football on show than the previous week on what looked like a heavy surface. There were many heavy touches, miss placed passes and wild efforts on goal. All that said the boys in Black and red made it count when it mattered and never really gave Swan a sniff. Craig Bishop opened the scoring on his return from a two week sabbatical helping disabled sea lions come to terms with life back in the wild. He headed home a pin point Spudulike corner, the ball just caressing the right hand post on its way in. The Ginger Prince doubled the lead 10 minutes later. After picking up a short pass from the flamboyant and well dressed Love God Fern Higgins the equally delicious Hamish McBeth jinked his way through the Swan back four and rounded the keeper to slot home his second goal in two games. 2-0 at the break.
After an all night rave and breakfast at the ‘Truck Stop’ on the A22 fatigue was starting to set in for 2Gun, couple that with the fact that ball had no desire to stick to his boot it was time to give the big man a well earned rest. Enter Luke Leppard. Luke was relegated to the bench after failing to show up away at Hadlow Harrow last week. According to him he was there, ready, changed and warmed up ready for KO when he suddenly realised that no one else was there, he claims no one told him that Hadlow play in Tunbridge Wells! Either way he was back and back with a bang. Within minutes he exchanged passes with Fergy and slotted the ball neatly past the Swan keeper to effectively make the points safe. Hamish doubled his tally heading in another lovely Thumbelina centre, this time from a free kick wide on the left. Bert made way for Junior pushing Pat up to right mid who was enjoying another energetic performance and showed no signs of needing to come off. Captain Mannering was trying hard to add to his goal from last week and stay ahead of Bish and Luke in the scoring charts but wasn’t getting much action, he then had two chances in quick succession. First he picked up a loose ball in the 6 yard box, swivelled and shot just wide of the post and secondly after a quick break the ball was played out to him just inside the 18 yard box, Hobbit curled ball low to the corner but the keeper pulled off an outstanding save and tipped it round the post. The scoring was completed by Luke with a lovely nonchalant 20 yarder, straight in to the top corner, no chance for the keeper.
It looked like Swan were missing a few faces and it was a scrappy game for sure but the perfect result and finally a clean sheet for big Dazza. We’re now in 2nd spot with two games in hand, not a bad place to be three weeks before Christmas.
