Staplehurst Monarchs United (1) 1 Couzzo 8
Faversham Strike Force (1) 1 Barton 2
Attendance: 88
Admission: £4
Programme: £1
Mileage: 2/6,973
On an evening when a very brisk wind played its part, Staplehurst recovered from a bad start, conceding within the first two minutes to thoroughly deserve their point that takes them out of the bottom three and they could justifiably claim they could have taken all three points.
A ball played out to the left found Faversham’s Tom Barton in acres of space to cut in and bury a shot into the bottom corner past an exposed Steve Lawrence. In the desperation to intercept, a Staplehurst defender was injured and required substituting. In a strange way, this turned the game in the Monarch’s favour as the substitute, the livewire Lorenzo Couzzo, proved a constant thorn in the side of the Strike Force defence.
On eight minutes a through ball saw Couzzo clear and he produced a composed finish past the advancing goalkeeper.
Unfortunately, the first half was a tetchy encounter in which the referee, Freddie Young, struggled to maintain order. Every tackle, from either side, was met with a scream and vociferous appeals to the official, none more so than from the Faversham goalkeeper, Harry Earl, who had an opinion on everything that went on, wither it was five yards away or 50 and expressed it with a colourful turn of phrase.
Earl, however, was Strike Force’s saviour on the night with a string of fine saves, the first of which coming after 11 minutes when he saved a shot from Couzzo from 10 yards with his feet.
The home side forced a series of corners and from one, on 23 minutes, a free header from Callum Gallie, should have found the target.
With the appeals getting louder, yellow cards were to follow and, on the half-hour, the referee took exception to one such appeal from Staplehurst’s manager Steve Sands and sent him off from the dugout.
Just prior to the break, another scuffle broke out which saw two more yellows brandished to Faversham players and a minute later, a Staplehurst player followed.
Into the second half, with both sides having cleared their heads in the break, a thoroughly decent game of football broke out in which Staplehurst were by far the dominant side but found Earl just about equal to everything they threw at him.
On 56 minutes, Earl touched a fierce shot from Kieran Pallet onto a post and within five minutes he had also denied Couzzo and Dom Bristow.
Faversham’s forays forward with spasmodic but, on 71 minutes, a free kick from some distance caught the wind and Lawrence did well to turn the ball over the bar.
Earl saved again, this time from Frankie Pooley and in time added, with Staplehurst throwing caution to the wind in search of a winner, he produced two more saves, low at his post to deny Couzzo and finally, from a corner, Alex Kendall saw his header go agonisingly wide.
Despite the wind that turned bitingly cold, and the tetchy first half, this turned into a thoroughly entertaining evening. Let’s hope that the Jubilee Sports Ground can entertain again next season with a continuance of SCEFL football, under the lights on a Wednesday evening, always a bonus.
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