Saturday 27th February 2010

Cowfold were disappointly held to a draw against local rival Southwater. In a game played in very difficult wet, boggy conditions Cowfold came up against a very determined Southwater team who fought for every ball throughout the 90 minutes. It was the home side that started the better and immediately found themselves in front following a move down their right wing. Cowfold always looked dangerous going forward and it took a fine curling strike from Tim Martin to draw them level. It wasn't long before Southwater edged back in front when a free kick flicked off the head of James Wrigley and flew into the top corner for an ownn goal. Wrigley was very unfortunate at the other end when his header was clawed away brilliantly from the top corner by the home goalkeeper. Nigel Smith was the next to have a chance at the back post with a header that seemed to hold up on the heavy pitch. It was Southwater however who extended their lead after a couple of errors by the Cowfold back line. Before half time Nigel Smith made no mistake with another header at the far post following a superb cross from Sam Leach. With the arrears reduced Cowfold went in at half time confident of getting themselves back into the game in the second half.

The second half was completely dominated by Cowfold with goalkeeper James Fisher a spectator as he watched his team create chance after chance. Nigel Smith, Dan Dalton, Tim Martin and Luke Tarrant all had opportunities with Dan Dalton hitting the bar and there were numerous goal mouth scrambles with the ball failing to find the net. Southwater were reduced to 10 men following a challenge on Ben Tucker. Tucker had to hobble off after the tackle and unfortunately now misses the mid week rep game with what looks like a nasty injury. With a few minutes to go a second Southwater player was sent off after fouling Tim Martin on the edge of the box, it was his second booking in the game. Martin stepped up to drill an unstoppable shot into the bottom corner to rescue the point for Cowfold. As the local reporter covering the game said afterwards it was just one of those days, he gave up trying to keep up with the number of missed chances Cowfold had, there were just too many of them.

Team: James Fisher, Sam Leach, Simon Pike, Ben Tucker, James Derbyshire, Dan Dalton, James Wrigley, Luke Tarrant, Tim Martin, Nigel Smith, Ross Barnett.

Subs: Craig Deane, Tom Easton, Stuart Ansell.