Egham run riot against woeful Yellas
Ascot United slumped to a 5-0 reverse at Egham Town in the Isthmian League on Tuesday. In a frankly awful display, only ‘keeper Kie Plumley’s heroics kept the scoreline down as his side’s anonymities in attack and frailties at the other end would both come together to damaging effect.
Yellamen seek to end winless run against fellow stutterers Egham
The Yellamen came into the game on a six-match winless run, and this would be the prime place to at least end it when facing a side one place and one point below them in the table, albeit The Sarnies had a couple of games in hand.
Having scored just twice in their four league games, finding the net had certainly been an issue for the home side, and Ascot supporters will recall their visit nine months ago, which ended 4-2 in their favour.
But The Yellas most recent memory was a dismal home reverse against Raynes Park Vale last weekend, bitter icing on a run of five defeats and one draw, finding the net just four times themselves.
Ascot handed a debut to defender Dan Brobbey, whilst welcomed back Babs Dehghani having featured last season, and Quaye Vine from injury.
On paper this wasn’t set up to be a classic, but you never know…
Shambolic first half sees Ascot two-nil down
It was, frankly, awful from the visitors, who created nothing and were reduced to lumping the ball forwards almost at every opportunity.
Egham were almost as poor, but they might have scored three or four. Connor Jeanes’s long-throw in was diverted onto the bar after seven minutes and Ben Parkinson cleared off the line when Connagh Wilks was left unmarked at the far post and almost converted in the 25th minute.
Connor Cullen then lobbed over when he might have done better, Jeanes’s shot from distance deflected wide and could have gone anywhere, but from the resultant corner Ascot didn’t learn their lesson and Wilks headed home unmarked; 31 minutes played.
Kie Plumley then produced a terrific save to push Brad Clayton’s free kick away, but quite incredibly, Ascot left Rayan Djouadi unmarked from another Jeanes throw-in just before half time to nod in again.
Lesson learnt: there were no lessons learnt.
Half time offers little more than respite
After the break it was more of the same. Three minutes in, Cullen’s shot was well saved by the feet of Plumley, but when Deago Dunbar-Bonnie found himself in space on the left with 58 minutes on the clock it was 3-0 courtesy of his crisp, low finish across Plumley and into the bottom right.
Substitute Seb Karczewski and Cullen contrived a well-worked one-two for the latter to slot home number four midway through the half to make it 4-0, before Plumley’s trio of saves – most notably from Clayton’s thumping effort – restricted further damage.
But Karczewski nodded down for Cullen to slam home a fifth in the 83rd minute, rounding off a truly horrible night for the travelling supporters.
Ascot substitute Chukz Uzor fired over in injury time from just inside the penalty area; that was their best effort of a truly miserable second half.
A game best forgotten, quickly.
Ascot United: Plumley, Brobbey, Richardson, Parkinson, Allsopp, Dehghani, Long, Vine, Bullard-Jeffrey, Platel, Pache. Subs (all used): Walters, Deru, Amiri, Mboge, Uzor.
Venue: The Runnymede Stadium, Egham
Attendance: 133
Weather: 20c, partly cloudy
Ascot United MOM: Kie Plumley
Entertainment: 1
Away fans estimate: 35
One-word summary: Unacceptable