Ascot United Supervets vs Cheam Sports Supervets

Report

Ascot United’s Supervets continued their remorseless charge towards the league title with a 2-0 win against a resilient Cheam Sports on 31 January. Chris Ferdinand notched his 18thgoal of a very impressive campaign, while his strike partner, Dave Thompson, made the game safe with a goal early in the second half.

Earlier in the season Ascot had won 8-1 against a Cheam side that by the end of the contest ran badly out of steam. It was a different story at the Racecourse this time round. Ascot won and, in truth, never really looked like they wouldn’t come away with the three points, but Cheam were well organisedand they had a counter-attacking game plan that they stuck to admirably. Respect due.

Ascot started by dominating possession. Mike Tomlinson played the Gary McAllister role in the middle of park, spraying the ball around impressively. Both Ferdinand and Thompson were holding the ball up resolutely, whilst Abbas Hussain was offering ample width down the left. It felt like it was only a matter of time until the inevitable first goal came.

And yet somehow that’s not quite how the story developed. Peter Mellett was putting in a sterling performance at the back, marshalling the Cheam defence admirably. The Cheam keeper showed that he had decent hands and, more pressingly, the two visiting forwards were both significant threats on the counter.

Indeed, in the first half hour it was Cheam who had the most obvious chances; they broke with speed and on at least three occasions worked the home keeper admirably.

Yet, the first goal did indeed come at the other end. The human wrecking ball that is Paul Hamblin thundered in a shot from 25 yards that the ‘keeper could only parry. Ferdinand, waiting like a coiled spring, pounced on the rebound. Ascot were one up.

Other good chances came and went; player manager Stu Flurry ghosted into the six yard box only to head a decent cross wide. Dan Hough did likewise from a ball in from the left, Tomlinson fired in shots aplenty while even Nigel Gatehouse meandered forward and began taking an interest in potentially contributing to the goal-scoring side of things.

None of the above could add to the one solitary first half goal that the Yellas managed. Zak Dimitrovski came on at half-time and he, however, had a more or less immediate impactthere. Not that he himself bagged – it was Dave Thompson who did that – but his impressive hassling of the visiting back line saw possession turned over and Thompson double Ascot’s lead.

The introduction of 71 year old Doug Page in a rather unfamiliar wing back role was arguably the main highlight of the last half hour. Page passed the ball about nicely, although quite how amused he was at Mike Tomlinson pinging a through ball down towards the corner for him to chase was (perhaps thankfully) not recorded.

Could there have been more goals? Most certainly. Could Cheam have scored? Yep, that was never completely out of the equation.

But, blanks were all that were fired from then on in. 2-0, eight wins out of eight in the league for Ascot, and, more importantly, a decent game played in a great spirit. What’s not to like.