12th April 2014
Furnace Green Rovers vs Keymer & Hassocks
Div 1
K & H made their final trip of the season to the dreaded depressing Cherry Lane for a return encounter with Furnace Green Rovers who of course beat them 2-0 the previous week.With the usual bout of late pull outs on the morning of the game K & H managed after some effort to assemble 12 players for the task with James Harris volunteering to be keeper for the day.
FGR seem rather an intense bunch, both players and supporters and started with an air of superiority about them as if they expected to win without trying too hard.In fairness they did put a lot of pressure on K & H resulting in numerous corners which were for the most part well defended.They also seemed to take exception to any decisions that did not go their way including some abuse for our lino Fin Fogarty when a goal was ruled out with 2 players clearly offside-Fin to his credit just smiled.They also moaned about another incident when keeper Harris had both hands on the ball but it was knocked out of his hands by one of their forward’s challenges so again no goal .
FGRs best chance came from a corner which they headed over whilst Lewis Taylor almost scored with a snapshot which the keeper got down to very quickly and made a fine save at full stretch.
The second half saw K & H come more into the offensive and they were rewarded when some confusion in clearing the ball from the back let Ian Parsons steal the ball,sidestep the defenders and unleash a powerful drive into the roof of the net.
That seemed to knock the hosts confidence a bit and K & H could have gone further ahead when Toby Raftery put a perfect through ball into Taylor’s path-his effort appeared to be destined for the far corner but the keeper pulled off a fingertip save.
To their credit FGR kept trying to rescue something from the game and with a few minutes remaining won a free kick on the edge of the area.The kick took a deflection from Taylor which wrong footed keeper Harris and the game was drawn.
