It's a very disappointing day when having 29 players signed on we are continually scraping around to pull a squad together.
On a difficult pitch and with injured players starting and Mark Gilder standing between the sticks we all knew it was going to be a long morning.
However Although CHL was under pressure from the start, On our first real attack, Daler Bhaker got down the left flank and fired a good effort goalwards only for the keeper to parry into Martin Doyle's path and he cooly nodded home to give CHL the lead.
As expected though, the lead was not to last too long and a defensive lapse in clearing the ball led to the opposition striker swivalling round and shooting through a crowd and leaving Mark Gilder stranded.
And only a short time later CHL went from leading to trailling as a quick goalkick from Pinewood bypassed CHL's midfield and their striker was to get passed the defence to go one on one with Mark Gilder who came out to meet him but the striker simply slotted the ball past.
Shortly before half time Lee Brinkley was clear on the left but was disgracefully taken out of the game by the opponent player with a dangerous sliding tackle, Lee was unable to continue and CHL were down to 10 men until the interval. Even though down a man, CHL did well and held on until half time with the score remaining 1-2.
Nishan Bhaker managed to arrive for half time, so was quickly brought on in Lee Brinkley's place. CHL were now on the uphill task literally as the pitch has a ridiculous slope. The battle proved difficult as wave after wave of attack led to the next oppotunity from Pinewood and with a miss-taken goal kick by Mark Gilder, the striker was through and shot to the keeper's right but miraculously Mark Gilder made up for the kick with a worldy diving save low to his right to push the ball out past his upright for a corner.
Not long after Pinewood had another chance to increase the lead as the striker was adjudged to have been brought down by Patrick Keenan (although it was merely the striker tripping on Pat's back foot as Pat had beat him to the ball). Mark Gilder stood up at as tall as he could (All 5ft4" of him!) he bounced on the goal line doing his best to put the forward off as he stepped up to take the penalty and it paid off as he struck the shot over the bar.
However all that effort was to be undone with a moment of pure genius precision when CHL were to give away a freekick just outside the box, the player hit a rasping shot which hit the inside of the bar over Mark's head and flew down beyond the line.
CHL were to go down to 10 men once again when a challenge on Patrick Keenan left him unable to continue and things were to get much worse as Tony Keast had decided enough was enough with the challenges on him and left the field of play reducing CHL to 9 men. As if that was bad enough shortly after a 50/50 challenge put Curtis Scarlett out of action too, so a quick decision was made to swap him with Mark in goal so as we didn't go down to 8 men.
Pinewood were then to increase their lead as a corner was squeezed in to the near post over the leg of Dan Spelman. The punishment was complete when Pinewood got their 5th goal to finish the game as 1-5 winners.
