A very hot afternoon as we lined up to the face The Dockers, Tilbury FC on Saturday in the FA Cup extra preliminary round and after two tough games in the last week the amount of players unavailable and injured already meant we only had fourteen players in the squad.

We did not start the game well and the rock hard pitch meant we struggled to pass the ball around at the back and meant our normal goal kicks were not something we could do to start the plays. Tilbury got on top fairly early on and we never got to grips with their 3-5-2 system in the first half and were second best in the air, and to most of the second balls. Tilbury kept getting the ball forward and were looking to turn our back four winning a number of corners from which they caused us some problems but still did not hit the target. An early substitution following a hamstring pull did not help as centre half Freddie Wood was replaced by Bailey Eden which meant a shuffle around at the back.

That changed just after the water break when a cross from their right was touched on in the box, hit the bar and came down, according to the referees assistant, over the line before we cleared it, not the best goal but it put the home side 1-0 up and the rest of the first half was more of the same. Alex from right back had a shot on goal and then a dangerous run from Josh saw him ghost past two defenders before pulling the ball back but no one managed to get on the end of it. We had a corner that caused them some problems but their keeper still had not made a save so went into half time 1-0 down and feeling like we had not been anywhere near good enough so far.

A change of shape for the second half matching the oppositions 3-5-2 saw us have a positive opening 10 minutes or so with much more pressure on their back four and Avto and Josh running at their defence and us looking a little more dangerous going forward however on 58 minutes our left back Marcus Crowther landed heavily on his shoulder and it was clear he could not carry on and would need to head straight to hospital as he has broken his shoulder before so not great for him.

Following that we huffed and puffed but never really got a foothold in the game and Tilbury played the conditions and the pitch better than us, they hit their front men early and tried to play only in the final third which we didn’t do well enough. Ryan Stevenson went in for a full blooded tackle as he does and ended up falling onto his wrist and breaking that so player number two off to the hospital and after that in all honesty we could not get going at all and the game was petering out and was only lit up when Tilbury bagged their second with ten minutes remaining with a great strike from their forward, 2-0 to them and on the day and fully deserved. The skipper then limped off five minutes from time to end a miserable afternoon for us and our FA Cup adventure is over before it has even got going.

Thankfully no midweek game this week so a chance to get a few players back for next Saturday at home vs Cockfosters

Quick update on Marcus and Ryan, both were operated on Saturday night and are in good spirits but won’t be playing football anytime soon.