Guildford City overcame hosts South Park in a high-tempo affair. Austin Gacheru and Dan Moody both bagged a brace in the first and second halves respectively, with South Park levelling soon after Gacheru’s opening goal.
Gacheru opened the scoring when he slotted home after fine work from Jaydon Gibbs on the left wing in the 7th minute. South Park equalised five minutes later from a well worked move. The hosts enjoyed a spell of pressure and created three or four half-chances, but found the City backline in excellent form. The visitors began to turn the screw with some attacking football – Simon Cooper bringing the ball forward from defence but his cross was blocked just as it was to be turned in. Guildford got their reward five minutes before the break when Gacheru scored his sixth goal in four games, to make it 2-1 to City at half time.
A niggly second half got underway in dramatic fashion. Within a few minutes of the restart, Will Heavey received a silly red card for pushing an opponent away from an aggressive outburst at Gibbs, although the situation was not helped by what appeared to be an attempted head butt by the home player. City, as in their previous match, carried on exactly where they left off with some excellent passing movement. Ten minutes later the numbers on each side were unfairly levelled – Dan Moody was brought down in the box and a penalty awarded. During their protests, South Park’s Bastin was given a second yellow card for dissent, despite the comment clearly coming from another player. Unperturbed, Dan Moody fired home the spot kick in the 65th minute. He grabbed his second goal, and City’s fourth, minutes later after latching on to an excellent long pass from Antony Hall and nipping in to chip over goalkeeper Wastell and past the despairing lunge of right back O’Sullivan. The pace of the match slowed noticeably after this as City saw out a comfortable victory over South Park, perhaps tired after their FA Vase exploits at the weekend.
Guildford City:
Antony Hall, Tony Chaplin, Ben Rayner (Casey McCabe 80), Simon Cooper [capt.], Tom Penson, Corey Holder, Dan Moody, Will Heavey, Austin Gacheru (Billy Dunn 66), Joel Hughes (Ben Camara 55), Jaydon Gibbs.
Unused substitutes: Jack Guilford, Michael Hall
Cautioned: Simon Cooper, Jaydon Gibbs, Tom Penson, Jaydon Gibbs
Sent off: Will Heavey
Referee: G. Collins
