SAL Division 2 - 9th December 2006

Despite a resolute showing from Bank of England, especially in a first-half where they could perhaps be justified in believing they had been the better of the teams on show at Beddington Park, Carshalton nevertheless cruised to a comfortable home victory to keep the pressure firmly on the other Division Two promotion challengers.

The game began promisingly for the visitors from Roehampton and, but for a marvellous reflex save from Cars keeper Ross Sinclair following a well-delivered corner to his near post, they would have opened the scoring in the 9^th minute. Then, on 16 minutes BoE went even closer to scoring after another fine stop from Sinclair – the ball rebounding into the path of a BoE forward who saw his follow-up effort cleared-off the line by Cars centre-back Neal Collard. Having finally settled, the home side at last started to play some football, fashioning in the 26^th minute a well-worked move from a Billy Andrews throw-in that finished with striker Shane Bowes sending a 20-yard effort over the BoE crossbar. For much of the remainder of the half the play was confined to the middle of the park with therefore little or no goalmouth action of note. However, five minutes before the interval a precision pass from Andrews that was played in behind the BoE left-back, invited Paul Pearce to cut into the 18-yard box where he sent a shot crashing against the side netting. A minute later though, after fine work from midfielders Sam Johnson and Kevin MacLeod, the Cars striker atoned for his earlier miss – Pearce beating the keeper from 8-yards to send his team in at half-time holding a slender lead.

Cars came out strongly after the break, soon doubling their tally in the 50^th minute with an absolute cracker of a goal. The alertness of midfielder MacLeod seeing him take a very quick throw-in to Pearce and then picking-up the return pass 25-yards from the BoE goal before striding forward and hitting an unstoppable shot that was still gathering speed as it hit the net inside the far post. A contender for any ‘Goal of the Season’ competition; the fact that this wonder strike had come from the right boot of MacLeod, will surely see it in time elevated to ‘Goal of the Decade’ status. Within a minute of the restart, Lewis Cosgrove’s attempted shot after his powerful run from the halfway line, fell invitingly into the path of Bowes who then raced into the BoE 18-yard box and buried the ball in the back of the net from 8-yards to put the game beyond the visitors. Four minutes later, a magnificent move down the left flank saw Cars break from box to box to score what turned out to be the final goal of the afternoon – excellent link-up play between Vincent and Bowes allowing the latter to drive a cross in at the near post where Pearce connected, forcing the ball against the underside of the crossbar and over the goal line via the shoulder of the luckless BoE keeper. However, Pearce might yet see this goal taken away from him after the Dubious Goals Panel next meet. In total control now the home side continued to press, but apart from another great strike from MacLeod, which produced a fine stop from the BoE custodian, and a volley from Cosgrove that scrapped the outside of the near post, they never really looked like scoring again.

Due to next week’s league fixtures having been revised at the weekend, Carshalton will not now be travelling the short distance to Mitcham where they were to have met Old Westminster Citizens, but will instead face a crunch game in Ealing against fellow promotion hopefuls BB Eagles just fourteen days after the teams met at Beddington Park where Cars took the spoils, winning by six goals to one.

Beddington Hotspur