After dumping Eden Rangers out of the cup in the last round we knew that beating Hadlow would leave us a fairly easy path to the final where bar a minor miracle Hawkenbury would be waiting for us.
With Baggo already out the late withdrawals of Bayley Woggles and Hobbit meant the day started badly for the B&A gaffer, luckily he was able to dip in to the squad and pluck out young Mitch Cowan and the experienced Adam Woolgar.
There was also the added pressure as we were being watched by the manager of next weeks opponents and table top rivals Eden Rangers not only that the Tonbridge League Secretary was also in attendance so everyone was on their best behavior. We started the game well and played some good attacking football. Merv was linking up well with Junior down the right flank and Woogins was relishing has chance to show the gaffer what he had on offer on the left. The breakthrough cam midway through the half when a Swerv corner was met with deadly precision by Ken Dog who notched his first ever goal in the black and red of B&A. Like the previous week instead of defending our lead we went for the jugular and carried on playing fast attacking football. Rob Gardiner was standing out from the crowd with another towering performance up top. Gozzy has also been thriving off this new partnership with 7goals in the last two games. And it was the Goz man who turned provider for the 2nd goal. His neat little through ball found the path of Woolgar who crashed through into the box and unleashed a stinging drive that was parried by the Hadlow keeper, but Woolgars momentum had carried him forward and he collided with ball and just about forcing it over the line. But like the man himself said at the final whistle “they all count” The third goal came after a nice move again involving Woolgar and Gosnell, this time it was Woolgar’s through ball, Gosnell powered his way in to the box and tried to pick out Swerv at the far post but his cross was turned in by the oncoming Hadlow centre back.
Assistant manager Woggles made an early change in the 2nd half replacing Harrison with the promising Bitch Cowan. Bitch got stuck in straight away and looked like he was enjoying the chance to show the team what he could do. It wasn’t long before Gozzy got in on the scoring action, after a lovely assist from the hard working Meat McGammon he turned and fired in from the edge of the box.
Woolgar was replaced by Mr. Ed, who pulled some lovely silky skills out of the bag straight away to mug off the Hadlow right mid. He kept it tight at the back for the last 20.
Gozzy rounded of the scoring after latching on to a Merv special and tucking the ball away for his 16th goal of the season. Again this left the Hobbit hopping mad on the sidelines. He has now fallen way behind in the scoring charts with 8, meaning Gozzy has the biggest slice of pie at the moment.
The game finished 5-0, only our second clean sheet of the season and everyone will be pleased to know that no Hadlow players were harmed during the making of this documentary!!
