Great Yarmouth Town FC v Downham Town FC.
Saturday 8th October 2022. Report by Martin Baxter.
After a week’s holiday in Spain and watching the mighty Alcudia beat Cardassar 2-0 last Saturday, it was back on home soil to report on the Bloaters once again with a visit from mid-table Downham Town.
Reading reports into their recent matches it appears that Downham play a very attractive style of passing football, however they seem to struggle with their finishing in front of goal.
The game initially started slowly, and then the first chance came in the 9th minute when Jackson went clean through on goal for the visitors and seemed certain to score, however somehow Lane managed to get a touch on his shot and sent the ball out for a corner with a first class save from the young keeper.
This save was crucial in the context of this match as 2 minutes later a Cantwell free kick on the right was flicked on to Couzens, who calmly slotted home from close range to put the Bloaters 1-0 up.
Straight from the re-start Downham pushed forward and had a great opportunity to pull level with a strike from Franks that was once again superbly stopped by Lane in the Yarmouth goal.
The rest of the first half continued with the visitors having the majority of the possession and playing some really good football without creating another clear-cut effort at goal and Yarmouth were working really hard at making sure they would go in at half-time with a slender lead.
Half time: Great Yarmouth Town FC 1 Downham Town FC 0.
The 2nd period began with both teams sloppy in possession and giving the ball away far too often.
The first opportunity of the 2nd half fell to the home side on the hour mark when Couzens had a surging run through on goal but was foiled by a last gasp tackle from a Downham defender.
Yarmouth then replaced McQueen for Trenery and they were digging in with some dogged defending and you could not fault their resolve to hang on to what they already had, however Lane was required once again to make another decent stop in the 85th minute.
In the 89th minute following a foul by Couzens close to the dug-outs, the game suddenly erupted into a mass brawl which resulted with 3 players lying prostate on the pitch.
The match officials took almost 9 minutes to come to their deliberations on who was responsible, and they ended up sending off both Watts-Sturrock and substitute Priddle for the visitors and there were also yellow cards for Yarmouth’s Phillpott and Couzens.
Perry then replaced Soares and the game re-started with 9 men Downham floating a free kick into the box which was cleared by the home defence.
However, the reprieve was short lived as 2 minutes later a beautiful curling effort from 20 yards out from Blackford sailed into the net to give the away side an unlikely equaliser.
Yarmouth then replaced Phillpott with Duffield and with now having a 2 man advantage they started to stretch their opponent’s as the 9 minutes of injury time were played out, however despite having a couple of half chances were unable to snatch that late dramatic winner and this excellent game of football ended up all square at 1-1
Great Yarmouth Line Up: Lane, Halliday, Philpott, Vincent, Barndon, Willetts, McQueen, Cantwell, Couzens, Soares, Jacobs. Subs: Perry, Duffield, Fenn, Trenery,. Roberts.
Man of the match: Ruben Lane. Attendence: 92.
