Ewell Vets 2 - 0 Kenchal
Goals: Rich (assist Vik), Baldy (assist Alan)
3 November 2024
Ewell Vets’ second win of the season came after a recent upturn in performances, if not results, and featured the debuts of two new players - Pablo and Mark K. Acting captain Baldy won us the toss in the first act of what turned out to be a fine afternoon for him.
Ewell started strongly and took the lead after about 5 minutes. Burnsie lifted a lovely ball over to Vik who drove inside, and laid off a pass to Rich who drilled it home. Kenchal played some reasonable football having gone behind, their best chance of the half (and the game really) when Ewell’s newest GK air-kicked a clearance to leave their striker through on goal, tweaking his hammy in the process. Fortunately James F had tracked the run and was on hand to clear.
Kenchal’s strong preference for playing out from the back suited Ewell’s all-new pressing game, and we were able to take the ball off them in their own half quite regularly. Encouragingly we played some nice football while in their half, keeping the ball and looking for opportunities rather than rushing it too much.
That being said, the second the goal came from a free kick won by one of Vik’s driving runs. Alan’s in-swinging delivery was met by Baldy’s ample dome which guided the ball past the keepers’ desperate sprawl.
Into the second half, and I don’t think Ewell have ever had such a comfortable 45 minutes. Kenchal continued to play from the back but they couldn’t keep the ball under the Ewell press. Mark K and James F had everything sewn up at the back, so Ollie had about 3 touches in total.
The big event of the half ended up being a missed opportunity for Ewell to extend their lead. Ben A’s miscued pass from the left drifted towards the Kenchal keeper. In comes Baldy who, possibly for the first time ever, got to the ball first before getting clattered by the keeper, winning the penalty. The keeper was down for a while having taken a substantial whack. That might be why he was stood to the one side of the goal, giving Vik two-thirds of the target free to aim at. This obviously played on Vik’s mind, who side-footed the kick wide.
The game somewhat petered out after that. A few more chances came Ewell’s way - Burnsie denied by the keeper at close range and Pablo had a nice long range effort just wide. But Kenchal couldn’t get anything going, and Ewell were able to keep the ball and therefore the game under control, which was really good to see.
Match Report by Ben A