BBOB continued their unbeaten run in a hard fought battle against one of the teams below them in the table. Both teams were up against it, as the weather was wet and very blustery. BBOB won the toss and opted to face the wind first. Despite efforts to play the ball on the ground by both teams, this seemed almost impossible and inevitably the ball spent most of the game in the air and being over hit. It wasn't a good game to watch or indeed to play in and at times frustrating conditions seemed to get the better of BBOB!
BBOB were missing some key players, Chris Thomas had failed to recover from his ankle injury sustained against Rottingdean, Dan Shrubb was unavailable as was centre back Sam Hamburger. Top scorer Lee (Chief) Madigan returned to the line up, but was still carrying his rib injury and Howard Lloyd was also carrying an injury from the previous week.
It was 0-0 at half time with BBOB creating the best chances of the half, Chief placed a shot just wide of the post after a good passing move as did Matt Barton (playing centre midfield this week).
Saltdean Sharks started the second half the stronger, they put the BBOB defence under pressure but failed to create many chances. Despite this, in the 54th minute BBOB took the lead from a well worked move down the left, Ryan Satterley's cross found right midfielder Steve Maskell in space inside the Shark's box, his well timed pass found Matt Barton who stroked the ball past the keeper. Following this BBOB had a string of chances to increase their lead, but nothing seemed to go their way. The Sharks keeper made some good saves and some last ditch defending kept BBOB at bay.
Against the run of play, a rare Sharks attack ended with a penalty award, BBOB failed to clear and a through ball to a Sharks centre forward led to a late challenge from centre back Lee O'Hare, the forward made the most of it but there was contact! The same player picked himself up and put the penalty away. 1-1. Shortly after this Mark Goodman made his return from his recent knee operation, he replaced Lee O'Hare at the heart of the defence, although his first notable contribution was to run half the length the field into the opposition's half and deliver a perfectly late challenge on one of their defenders!
BBOB continued to press after this and in the 79th minute a goal mouth scramble where two attempts on goal had already been made, led to Chief bundling the ball over the line to give BBOB the lead for the second time! The lead lasted just six minutes as again the BBOB defence failed to clear their area and a shot from just inside the area beat the BBOB keeper Tom Jackson.
A late substitution was made, to allow Steve Fill a run out, he replaced player-manager Steve Maskell at right midfield.
The result felt like a defeat as BBOB certainly had the best chances in the game, and plenty of possession! Although, BBOB are now unbeaten in five games!!!
Match side reporter Paul Barton
