Amersham Town - League Cup (07/10/2001)
2001 - 2002 Season, Hithercroft Under 15s



The day started off badly for us and things just went from bad to worse. As David Blackman, Ruari Kerr and Shane Globe were injured and our captain, Jason Guy, was unavailable we were expecting to field just ten players against this strong third division side. However, Duane White failed to appear and Jack Fuller realised that he had forgotten his boots just before kick-off. This meant that we had to start the game with just 8 players whilst Kevin went home to get Jack’s boots. The weather was cloudy and the wind began to build up in the second half but the rain and gales that had been forecast stayed away until after the game. Once again, I ran the line and Dewayne Dublin captained the team in Jason’s absence.

After twenty minutes of play Jack came on to bring our number up to nine but by this time we were two goals down and we conceded another in the 31st minute. In the first half Lee had pulled off some fine saves and Dewayne had seen little of the ball up front.

In the second half Dewayne, when he did receive the ball, battled hard but obviously had little support from his depleted side. He was unlucky when he took a curling free-kick but the Amersham keeper pulled off a fine save, jumping high to gather the ball from the top right hand corner. He did manage to find the back of the net later but was unfortunately ruled off-side. Ten minutes into the half the Amersham No 10 ran inside from the wing to hit the ball past the diving Hithercroft keeper, Lee Hudson, to put the home team 4-0 ahead. Three minutes later he repeated this move to add to his tally. Then the No 15 scored from a crossed ball three minutes later and he also scored again within sixty seconds of the restart. Amersham’s eighth goal came from a superbly struck direct free kick which went high into the net, after 28 minutes of the half. The No 9 scored for Amersham one minute later and the next goal of the game came from a determined No 15. With his back to the goal he attempted an overhead kick but mis-hit it. A Hithercroft player knocked the ball back at him, whereupon he jumped back up, turned and fired the ball into the net. Amersham’s No 14 completed the scoring just before the final whistle making the result 11-0 to Amersham.

Both the Amersham manager and some of their supporters were hoping that Dewayne would at least manage to score one goal for us as they were very impressed by the determined way that he had played.

The goal-scorers for Amersham were Ian Kehoe(1), Clinton Wynne(1), Matthew Holmes(2), James Edwards(2), Craig McKay(2) and ‘Saby’ Rauf(3).