Chequers lost their final pre-season friendly 3-2 against fellow LDSL team Dunstable White Swan today. Chequers were without both first team centre half’s Rolls who is currently touring the United States on his Harley Davidson. And Neil Bishop who is bird watching with Bill Oddie in Devon. This lead to a makeshift centre half pairing of Tom 'Lightning' Tracy and Old 'Usian Bolt' Tim. This pace at the back seemed at first to be an adequate cover however the opposition strikers turned out to be nearly twice as fast as the pair... Shock... There were further first teamers missing with centre midfield pair Tom Smith and Rob Mardel both performing in the Notting Hill Carnival in their famous cabaret act 'THE DREAM BEARS'. New signing Scambati was ruled out early after an assessment from the medical team. Super sub Jake Godfrey was also missing through having something better to do, despite being in the form of his life over the last few weeks.
The game kicked off on a very good surface with a fantastic zip to the play. Unfortunately the ball again was not kept on the floor and went back and forth in the air like a ping pong ball. The pacey Chequers defence played a high line and got caught a few times with balls over the top and the Swan players able to canter through for the 3 goals they got in that half. Chequers continued on in the even game and managed to themselves benefit from the long ball that Roulier pinged forward for Hinton to knock on and Ryan was able to glide the ball past the oncoming keeper. It was 3-1 at half time but Chequers had no reason to be down in a game in which they did not deserve to be so far behind.
Chequers came out in the second half and had plenty of chances however where caught out offside so many times the stats man lost count. The linesman was Swan's strongest player in the second half putting in a solid defensive performance. Swan won a dubious penalty in the second half when Tim Younger was judged to have fouled when jumping for a header. However as has happened to every penalty that has occurred on this pitch during pre-season it was put wide. Hinton had the best chance of the second half when he was put through by Onyon and took it in his stride only to have his effort saved by the Swan keeper. Chequers were fortunate with their next goal when Mardell put a free kick in high to the back post and an unchallenged Swan player beautifully headed into his own net. The game ended 3-2 but with Chequers picking up a full scouting report and with the missing 6 players back for the two league games they will be a completely different story. FT 2-3.
