"Tony Talks"

Good afternoon, I would like to welcome you all to Park View Road for this SCEFL fixture against Rusthall. I hope that their management team, officials, and supporters (of which they have a few!) enjoy their visit to Park View Road. Our last home fixture against Tunbridge Wells didn’t go as well as we’d hoped or expected. We are certainly very aware that any team in this league can beat any other, but this performance was a little bit out of the blue. We all knew that the winning streak had to come to an end sometime, but nobody thought it would end quite like it did. Genuinely, every single player had an off day and credit to Tunbridge Wells, they played really well and were clinical in front of goal. Trevor McCreadie, one of my old players, came back to haunt me and us by scoring 4 goals, and we just couldn’t get going on the day. Since then, we had a very good away draw at Whitstable against a very good side. Credit to the boys, we went 1-0 down but came back 2nd half and scored very late in the game to go 2-1 up. Whitstable weren’t done though, and they got their equaliser in the 97th minute. Hard one to take but a draw on reflection was a point gained when compared against other results on the day. They will also now take points off other teams and I expect to see them climbing the table under their new manager. Tuesday night saw us make the arduous journey to play Redbridge in the London Cup, and on a disgusting night weather wise we played very well. I felt we dominated the game for 90 minutes and deservedly went through to the next round after a convincing 5-2 win. Somehow, we found ourselves 1-0 and then 2-1 down but carried on doing the right things and got the result we deserved. Special mention to George Purcell who scored a hat trick, this was his reward for being patient and working his way back from a serious injury and surgery, which was carried over from last season. What a great prize as well as we now have a home tie against Brentford, regardless of the side they send to play the game, we will be playing against a Premier League team!!!! We are under no illusions; Rusthall will be an extremely tough nut to crack and whatever we get out of this game (if anything) will have been hard earnt. They have quality within their side that can undo you as I well know. Reuel Powell-Downey is a player I know well having had the pleasure of managing him. He is a gifted player and will cause us lots of problems if we allow him any space to operate in. Obviously he’s not their only good player, but he’s the one that I know personally and wanted to give him a special mention. I hope that you enjoy the game today and we look forward to your loyal and continued support for the remainder of the season. Good luck to us!

Becks