First Team Vs Bridon Ropes

23 February 2019

Erith and Belvedere          4          Lake 5, Harding 59, 70, Mpungi 74

Bridon Ropes                      0

RECORD-BREAKING DERES SHOW DEDICATION TO TITLE CAUSE

Last season Bridon Ropes gave the Deres perhaps the two most humiliating defeats in their history, 5-2 in Charlton and 6-1 at Park View Road.  In the first of three crucial meetings this season, the Deres took sweet revenge and laid the bogey.

In so doing they made a couple of bits of club history.  After six previous 13-game unbeaten runs, this was the first time a Deres side has avoided defeat for 14 matches.  And the win equalled the club record of 8 successive victories: this has been achieved four times before, and the tough assignment at Sutton Athletic next Saturday will see this year’s Deres go for the outright record. 

Most importantly, though, with a run-in including seven out of 14 games against fellow title contenders, this was a definite statement of intent – and the Deres took the initiative as early as the 5th minute, when a free kick level with the right edge of the Bridon box was steered beautifully into the far top corner by Ramell Lake.

The Ropes went into this game in 3rd place with 11 league wins in 12, and were fast and confident going forward.  Yet at every turn they came up against a Deres team working for each other and on top form.  Dan Teeley held a goalbound shot from Jacob Kalonda, and Ropes top scorer Richard Jimoh saw a free-kick blocked by the wall as they had the better chances of the half.  Kalonda hit the side netting when pouncing on a slip by Tony Hill, and just before half-time Teeley pulled off an outstanding save in a non-on-one with Nathan Simpson.

The balance tipped a little when the injured Jimoh was replaced by Cameron Anderson-Parr at half-time, and Deres free-kick routines saw Reece Barrett heading wide and Alex Jones punching out Harry Harding’s goalbound header.  Then just before the hour mark came the best move of the match: a determined bustling crossfield run by Jerome Wade, who sent a channelled ball to Joseph Ogunbiyi who laid a second goal on a plate for Harry Harding.

11 minutes later Harding was on hand again when Guy Mpungi’s cross/shot hit the bar, meeting the dropping ball first with his head and notching his 35th goal in just 30 appearances for the Deres.  Then on 74 minutes it was astonishingly 4-0 with a ferocious 25-yard drive by Mpungi.

With the result and those records beyond doubt, spectators could relax, except for those interested in the other potential stat of the day: whether Dan Teeley could become the first Deres keeper ever to manage five consecutive clean sheets.  And in achieving this, the way Chan Quan harried the athletic Anderson-Parr for 40 yards down the left wing before dispossessing him spoke volumes about the team spirit that is making the Deres, as one of the bar staff put it, a happy club again.

DERES: Teeley; Hill, Barrett, Lake, Yembra, G Jones, J Wade (Curtis 83), Quan (Dobson 88), Ogunbiyi (Olayokun 82), Harding, Mpungi.

ROPES: Jones; McCarthy, Woodcock, Dennis, Nicholls, Smith, T Anderson-Parr (Murphy 75), Kalonda, Jimoh (C Anderson-Parr ht), Simpson, Dasofunjo.