Guildford City (0) 1, Farnham Town (1) 3
by Barry Underwood
A record crowd for a league match assembled on a gloomy day at Guildford’s Spectrum stadium. A much-fancied Farnham Town side were in town looking to maintain this season’s 100% league record. Rain arrived on kick-off and the match was played on an increasingly heavy pitch, and with a swirling wind to boot. A difficult day for football was no understatement.
Encouragingly for the home side the first shot on goal was theirs. Following a cross the ball fell to the edge of the area where Leon Dadey’s shot powerfully goalward only to be blocked by a mass of defenders. Within a minute Farnham had taken the lead courtesy of two defensive errors giving Shamal Edwards the chance to round the keeper and slide the ball in. The visitors sensed another goal fest – of which they have had many this season – and Edwards soon shot narrowly wide. James Glover cleared an effort off the line, and on 22 minutes the influential Adam Liddle forced Mac Chisholm into a fine diving save. Three minutes later Guildford fashioned an excellent chance to equalise. Following a nice build up Owen Sims swung an excellent cross into the six-yard box where Leon Dadey was unable to make contact with the goal at his mercy. Liddle again forced Chisholm into a diving save, before on the cusp of the interval Liddle launched himself into a poor challenge which earnt him a red card.
The second period was played in much the same vein. Early on a tremendous, long-range volley by Lewis Flatman was comfortably saved by Mac Chisholm. Ten men or not Farnham still enjoyed plenty of possession and twice they saw efforts go narrowly wide. Any Farnham anxiousness was dispelled on the hour when Harry Cooksley curled in a free-kick from which tall defender Ryan Kinnane powered home an unstoppable header. Within a minute Anthony Ogbanufe had a good chance for City. In space on the left his right foot effort was parried by Nash in the Farnham goal and cleared by covering defenders. Farnham scored a third on 84 minutes. A corner curled into the box and Charlie Postance’s head reached the ball before Mac Chisholm’s attempted punch. 16-year-old Ben Thompson was impressive in his brief cameo role on the right and from his cross Anthony Ogbanufe went down in the box. With penalty awarded Darnell McDonald stepped up to net and put an air of respectability to the final scoreline.
Team: Mac Chisholm, Owen Sims, Darnell McDonald, Jon Sanchez (Callum Sullivan 45), James Glover, Jake Heighes (Freddie Robins 58), Anthony Ogbanufe, Niall Stillwell (Ben Thompson 66), Conor Stillwell (Ellis Byrne 82), Mike Coppinger, Leon Dadey (Lewis Taylor 76).
Referee: Daryl Ann
Attendance – 272