Ben Bullock was the dead-ball king as his hat-trick of a penalty and two sublime free kicks helped the Lions on their way to a second win against a top six side in successive weeks. Furthermore, the 3 points guarantees our place amongst the elite of the smaller Division 2 when it splits next month.
Another week, another match against a team in third place behind us. It's been a couple of years since we've made the trip down to Reigate Heath and we'd forgotten that this is the one ground where the home team not only have to put the goal net up, but the entire goal itself. Thought we had the wrong address when we arrived...
With a strong team and a decent win from last week, we had a good level of confidence going into this game, though tempered with warnings not to let ourselves get complacent at any stage, as this was nearly our undoing in the second half against Epsom Albion Reserves. Within a minute of kick off, we nearly got a rude awakening anyway, as a missed attempt at a clearance from Mike left their striker one-on-one with Lewis. His weak effort was straight at our goalie though, which pretty much summed up their attack for most of the game. For a team with their record, Reigate seemed oddly short on both confidence and quality in front of goal.
For nearly half of the opening 45 minutes we didn't create that much either, to be fair. It mostly consisted of Max complaining vocally to the ref about anything and everything, getting worked up and getting on everyone's nerves. Pretty amazing that the ref didn't book him or worse (definitely had refs who would have done so in the first ten minutes) but if there's one other thing that Max does just as well as winding refs up, it's drawing fouls from the opposition.
Max got hacked down inside the area and with no Harry around, Ben was on the scene to place the ball for the spot-kick. He smacked it firmly down the middle via the slightest of brushes with the keeper's trailing leg to get us off the mark. A few minutes later, another hack on Max just outside the area to the left of the goal presented Ben with another opportunity for a dead-ball strike. This one he bent beautifully round the outside of the wall into the far corner, with the keeper only able to help it along its way into the back of the net.
Reigate responded with a penalty of their own, which the ref gave for a push by Ed whilst making a clearing header from a free kick. Literally nobody else on the pitch seemed to notice this offence, including the opposition players, but the penalty stood and it was tucked away pretty well by the same player who'd squandered the first opportunity off the game.
Pegged back, but we were definitely bossing the game and Ben had a chance to get his hat-trick but after working his way well from the left-hand touchline, his final shot was blazed well over the bar. He got into a similar position on the right hand side, with his shot this time being low enough to cannon back off the bar. The ball fell kindly into Rob's path as he followed up and he was able to place the rebound past the keeper to restore our two goal advantage.
Max then redirected his energy from his mouth to his feet as he skillfully kept a cross field pass from Boan in play at the left touchline, turned a couple of defenders inside out as he weaved into the area then from a tight angle drove the ball into the top right hand corner.
It was a lead that we deserved on the balance of play but not one that we kept for very long. Mike (who will be the first to admit that he didn't have the best 45 minutes that game) got caught the wrong side of their striker from a throw-in. The striker's low cross in was met by another Reigate player sliding in to poke the ball home.
Apart from that and the early attempt, Reigate had virtually zero shots on goal, with Nick S (having another excellent game on the left in his snazzy new Hyper Venom boots) and Mussa nullifying their wingers and the central defensive trio keeping things more or less tight, despite a few wobbles.
We started the second half still very much on top and became more so as it progressed. Nelson had a couple of early gilt-edged chances to score after getting to crosses from the right, but uncharacteristically got his feet mixed up at the crucial moments.
Another hack on Max outside the area in a virtually identical position from which Ben's first free kick went in, gave a chance for him to put in a repeat performance. This time he went low to the left hand corner but the result was the same: ball in the back of the net and a first hat-trick of the season for Ben.
Reigate really offered very little up front and Lewis, bless him, must have been feeling a bit bored and left out. To alleviate his boredom and scare the absolute crap out of us, he decided it would be a great idea to take on a back pass that an attacker was enthusiastically chasing down and try something like a Cruyff turn to send said attacker the wrong way. It didn't quite come off though, he lost the ball and ended up diving at the player's feet trying to prevent the shot. Lewis would have been forever known as "Artur Boruc" (Google "Boruc" "Arsenal") had it not been the fact that the striker then committed his own howler in managing to completely miss the open goal from all of 10 yards.
Bache had a shot go millimetres wide (so he says) and Boan and Rob had shots from distance, but despite not having the best of games, Nelson still managed to appear on the scoresheet. He got onto the end of Ben's through ball and after a kind ricochet off the keeper, tapped in for our sixth.
There was time enough for your Webmaster to get onto the pitch for a first run out in months, showing a nice touch to instantly control a pass from Bache that dropped out of low Earth orbit (lost the ball immediately afterwards but that's by the bye and it didn't matter anyway). Nick S then made a great run to the byline to send a low cross across the six yard area, the result of which was an actual shot on target from yours truly that forced the keeper into a save, something that hasn't happened in literally years.
In the end it was a surprisingly comfortable win over one of our presumed rivals for the title, who no doubt will be a different prospect next time we meet. Whatever the circumstances, the three points were welcome and we've got some momentum going into the next big game in this period. Following Epsom Albion's loss at the weekend, we're now just a point behind them with a game in hand and 5 points ahead of third. It's a good time to be a Lion...
