Chatham Town 0 Worthing 1

Match 37/14/1146 - Tuesday, 4th November 2014 - FA Trophy 1QR Replay

Chatham Town (0) 0
Worthing (0) 1 Bugiel 83
Att. 123

Entrance: £5 Senior
Programme: £2
Mileage: 33/2,512

Match Report

Despite being rewarded for turning out on a rain-lashed night at Maidstone Road with a pretty lousy match to view, I still felt that the football gods had been with me on this occasion. An afternoon had been spent regularly checking the travelling time to Harrow Borough Football Club and the notorious M25 rush hour traffic. An initial journey time of 1 hour 35 minutes had risen closer to two-and-a-half hours when I decided that I might be left sitting in traffic as the game kicked off and decided that opting for the easier option of Chatham's Trophy replay against Worthing might be a wise move.

As I pulled into the car park at Chatham, my mobile phone dinged with a notification from Football Web Pages, match at Harrow postponed. What would have been a minimum of four hours travelling time had been avoided; as I donned a heavy coat and gloves for the first time this season, I was thanking my luck stars.

As illustrated at Tonbridge in the Ryman League Cup a month ago, Chatham, shorn this season of the extravagant talent of Alfie May and the goals of Ade Yussuf, have a lack of potency in the final third of the pitch and this cup exit further highlighted their weakness.

On a night when the heavens opened and the pitch became increasingly slippery , Chatham appeared to be unwilling to follow their visitors lead and take the pot shot from 20 yards plus when the opportunity arose. Worthing did this on several occasions and although these efforts failed to produce a goal, several of them required retrieving at the second attempt by the Chats keeper, Tom Welham.

On the night, Chatham’s front two, Austin Gacheru and Junior Kaffo laboured against some resolute Worthing defending. Gacheru, who took the bulk of the criticism from the faithful sat around me, curled a second half shot narrowly over the angle of bar and post whilst Kaffo, quite impressive at Tonbridge made very little impression.

The game was settled with eight minutes remaining, a relief to everybody I’m guessing that wanted to avoid extra time as the cold was beginning to bite at the extremities, with a far post header by Omar Bugiel, who drifted into position unchallenging following a corner. The goal was greeted by the half-dozen Worthing supporters behind the goal that had braved the weather and gave their team noisy support throughout.

I was glad to get back indoors to the warmth of a cup of tea within half-an-hour still thanking the heavens that I wasn’t stuck on that blessed motorway.