Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Game 4: Salisbury City 2.1 Ebbsfleet United 14.08.07 (Blue Square Premier)

After the sunshine comes the rain - the heat of Droylesden was replaced by dark rainclouds over the Ray Mac during the first half of Salisbury's first home game in the Blue Square Premier.

Ebbsfleet had an early attack and when Mark Debolla was brought down by a late Aaron Cook challenge, the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. Ryan Clarke was sent the wrong way and Ebbsfleet were a goal up after 4 minutes.

Salisbury took a while to get going but started to find their feet and on 41 a great cross from Bass on the right found Robbie Matthews in the middle. The ball seemed to have some spin on it which allowed Matthews to get in front of the defender and power a header into the corner of the net for the equaliser to the delight of the home fans.

As there was no segregation, I decided to wander down to the far end for the second half but didn't stay there too long as the rain started to come down and the raindrops on my glasses meant that I couldn't see too much! During that ten minutes, I did get to see Salisbury take the lead - Matt Tubbs raced though the middle after a misplaced Ebbsfleet pass and took the ball round the keeper before tapping it in.

Tubbs then had 2 goals disallowed for offside, including a superb effort from outside the box that flew over the keeper and in. Salisbury were playing with growing confidence and Ebbsfleet didn't offer much of a threat to Salisbury until the last ten minutes when they were down to 10 men. Neil Barrett, the former Portsmouth and Woking midfielder, landed awkwardly when jumping for a ball and had to be stretchered off - this coming a couple of minutes after the third Ebbsfleet substitution. The last couple of minutes was all at the near end but Ebbsfleet were unable to convert this pressure into a goal. Salisbury's first win of the season!

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