On a very fine Saturday afternoon uea once again made life hard for themselves as they managed to salvage all 3 points although conceding 3 goals in the process.
Uea looked very lively in the starting quarter of the game as they played up hill against a lowly lying Thetford side in the Anglian combination 2 league game. For once they managed to take full advantage of the quick start by being 1-0 up within the first 25 minutes. A well lofted ball over the top by AP dafydd for Richards to run on for was duly slotted home, albeit the linesman giving offside which thankfully was overruled by the referee. However one that thought this might have been a routine afternoon for the students were wrong as suddenly they found themselves level at 1 apiece as a lucky deflected pass found its way to the striker who finished well. Again uea were their own worst enemy as a corner taken by the students in the oppositions half suddenly turned to a thetford attack which lead to a goal and the score was 2-1 at the break.
The stern words at the break from the student contingent unfortunately failed to come to fruition as nearly immediately after the restart they found themselves 3-1 down to a stunning left footed, outside the box effort. Nevertheless the students like doing things the hard way so battled on to try and salvage some sort of positive result from the game. Luckily they somehow found themselves more or less straight back into the game as a cross was failed to be cleared by thetford and Richards was there to pounce for his second of the match.
Now the students were really on the front foot, especially after a tactical change to a 4-4-2 formation which gave fletcher a much needed helping hand up front. martey also came on to give an extra attacking option on the right, and it was he martey who arguably got the students back in touch, as he won a penalty from a blatant push. Having missed 3 of their last penalties everyone looked at each other asking the question who is going to have the cahones. But up stepped the always confident chapman who did not hesitate to smash home the ball to bring the game level at 3 apiece.
Wave after wave of attack now followed from the students, who could not quite find the cutting edge. The bar was rattled a few times, the keeper was constantly called into action and uea even had the ball in the back of the net albeit being dubiously called offside by a biased linesman. Alas however the winner came 5 minutes from time as luckily the reff gave uea a corner which should've never of stood. From the resulting corner uea punished thetford as a nice lofted ball by potter found its way to fletcher who finished an extremely long barren spell without a goal with a cheeky toe poke which bobbled its way into the bottom corner.
Thetford pushed for an equalizer but were come undone by a good stop, by what looked to be a hungry badger in front of the uea sticks. A subsequent corner was followed but a heroic punch from the hungry mammal gave uea all 3 points in an exhilarating game that finished 4-3.
