St Michaels Football Club 2 vs 1 South Darenth

St Michaels F C     2              South Darenth   1           Game played on 7/4/13

St Michaels started this crucial match against South Darenth confidently, especially as the opposition only had ten men from the start. They were sharply out of the blocks again and after only 4 minutes Stuart Bird was unlucky to see his header hit the bar.

The game was scrappy on a bumpy pitch but St Michaels continued to push and on 19 minutes Stuart Bird saw his left foot shot from outside of the box strike the post. The only other notable incident in the 1st half saw Tom Pexton brought down with the referee giving a penalty and then after speaking to the linesman he changed his decision to a free kick outside of the box. Half time came with the score level at 0 – 0.

The start of the second half resembled that of the first with St Michaels on the attack and after 5 minutes Adam Fahy was brought down for a penalty which was duly stroked in by Tom Pexton to give St Michaels the lead at 1 – 0. On 73 minutes against the run of play South Darenth took advantage of some slack work in the St Michaels defence to equalise. On 75 minutes Arran Amer came on for Tom Pexton and the game looked to be heading for a draw. With 2 minutes to go St Michaels pushed forward for the winner and a Kevin Pinner assist saw Stuart Bird strike for his 27th goal of the season to give St Michaels a vital 2 – 1 victory.

Not the best of games on a difficult pitch. But praise to all the team for keeping going and getting the vital three points. Special mentions for Stuart Bird who was a constant threat up front and Harry Graham who never made a mistake in goal with some superb handling. However Man of the match this week goes to Connor Reardon who was superb at the heart of defence making only one mistake throughout the game. We won’t talk about that one Connor.

Our next game is the Betts Cup Final against Premier Division Barnehurst. Lets go one better than last year boys.