Village defeated Sutton Knights 4-3 in their first pre-season game of the year. Giving debuts to Duncan Fraser, Paul Jenner, Harry Haggis, Mehdi Chakibi and Phil Boon, Village were to claim the victory thanks to goals from Haggis, Toby Meller, Adam Meller and Matheu Sullivan.
Village started slowly, with Sutton getting on top in the first 15 minutes, without really threatening the Village goal. That was until midway through the half, when a defensive slip gave the ball back to Sutton in the corner, and when the forward made moves into the box, his cross shot ended up in the net just in side the far post.
Village then got on top of the game, and it wasn’t long before they had the ball in the back of Sutton’s net. Unfortunately, Gill was ruled to be offside, and this quickly became the theme of the first half, with Gill having another two ‘offside’ goals ruled out. With 52 minutes on the clock, due to a swap of refs and not telling the correct kick off time, Village equalised. A corner was only half cleared before being put back into the box. Debutant Haggis was left alone in the middle of the box, and was allowed to take a touch before rifling it into the roof of the net and leave the sides level at half time.
After a few changes, Village began to get on top and soon a ball in from the right by Toby Meller found Gill and Chakibi, who after three or four attempts within the six yard box needed Toby Meller to continue his run and finish from all of about one yard from goal.
A few minutes later, a Sutton player had the ball at his feet midway inside his half with everyone on his side shouting to kick it out as their forward appeared to be injured. While the Sutton defender hesitated, Adam Meller nipped in and placed a shot from 25 yards out into the far corner. This enraged the Sutton players, but Village agreed that they would let Sutton walk the ball into the net to compensate the error.
After 65 minutes, a ball broke in the centre circle for Sullivan to challenge the Sutton midfield with the ball breaking forward towards Gill, who challenged the centre back into popping the ball up about 30 yards from goal. Sullivan then ran onto the ball and on the bounce volleyed it over the keeper, who was off his line, and into the corner to give Village a 4-2 lead.
Ten minutes later, some good work down the left by Gill found Toby with his back to goal on the edge of the box. With two defenders around him he was able to find the run in the channel of Sullivan who was about to strike the ball in the box when the last defender brought him down from behind. With the penalty being awarded, many players shouted for Heffernan to take, which he did. Unfortunately, the keeper guessed right and saved high to his left to keep Sutton in the game.
With five minutes left to play, some good play down the left for Sutton resulted in a ball across the box for their midfielder to drill low into Baker’s right hand corner.
But Village were to hold on to begin their pre-season with a 4-3 win.
