Surrey County Intermediate League (Western)

Saturday 27th November 2021

Kick Off 14.00. On Time !

Ottershaw 1 Manorcroft United 1, attendance 16

9’ 1-0

84’ 1-1 (pen)

@ Egham Cricket Club

Vicarage Road

Egham

TW20 8NP

No Admission or Programme.

The attraction of this game was not based on league positions, as this was a mid table battle, with 10th hosting 11th, but was purely to complete the league. It also helped that it was only half an hour drive from the morning match, although this took a little longer than expected due to heavy traffic trying to cross the River Thames near Hampton Court Palace, before heading west towards Egham. The only downside was that I had been unable to confirm that the game was definitely going ahead and it didn’t help that the club didn’t bother to reply to a Twitter message in regard to this. It was a relief to pull into the car park 35 minutes before kick off and see both teams warming up.

The game itself was lacking somewhat in goalmouth action. Ottershaw scored within ten minutes of the start, from what turned out to be one of the few chances of the half, scoring at the second attempt following a good save by the ‘keeper from the initial effort. They looked to have made the game safe with six minutes left, ‘scoring’ with an angled shot across the ‘keeper, which hit either the wheel on the portable goal frame, or the stanchion, before bouncing back out of the net and being cleared downfield. The Referee ruled the shot had hit the inside of the post, but it certainly looked a goal from our position, which was closer to the incident. From the clearance, Manorcroft broke away and their striker was upended in the box by the ‘keeper, resulting in a penalty, which was dispatched to make it 1-1.