Enfield Town 1 Eastbourne Borough 2
Report By Andrew warshaw
It all started so positively. A player of the month award for Hayden Bullas and a guard of honour for Sam Youngs for having broken the club’s appearance record (pictured)
But by the end, Enfield Town were ruing yet another league defeat and have now ominously collected just three points out of a possible 12 to remain just above the relegation zone.
Town were a shadow of the side that comfortably beat Ebbsfleet in their last home encounter and, as Gavin Macpherson had predicted, faced an Eastbourne side who belied their bottom-four position.
Unlike previous recent defeats, we couldn’t really argue that we created enough to take something from the game, at least in the second half when we failed to hurt The Sports going forward.
Conversely, Eastbourne’s leading scorer Pemi Aderoju was always a threat and he was his double that earned the visitors only their second league win of the season.
After Eastbourne had shaded the opening exchanges, Town put together a sustained period of pressure and made it count on 29 minutes when Henry Hawkins, up from the back, stole in the back post to convert a crisp set-piece.
Ryan Sandford had already come to his side’s rescue by brilliantly clawing away a Sam Youngs header.
Sam had earlier been forced to leave the field and change his shirt — for the first of no fewer than four times during the afternoon — having been the victim of an over-zealous challenge by Camron Gbadebo which led to a blood-splattered head wound.
But no sooner had Enfield got on the scoresheet than the visitors responded in style two minutes later with a magnificent bullet header from Aderoju from the edge of the box.
Minutes later, Town were forced into a change when Bailey Brown limped off with a groin issue to be replaced by Ollie Knight
H-T 1-1
If the parity was just about right at halftime, one might have expected Town to push on after the break.
Instead, six minutes into the second half, it was the visitors who came from behind to lead. Nino Adom-Malaki looked to have been fouled near the byline but nothing was given and the resultant cross was by swept home by Aderohu.
Lamar Reynolds was next to leave the field because of a hamstring tweak, paving the way for Olly Davis to make his Town debut off the bench.
But if anything, it was Eastbourne who came closest to adding to the scoreline. Aderoju, who had already showed how vital a proven goalscorer can be, slipped just as he was about to complete his hattrick whilst a flicked header from a teammate came back off the woodwork.
As Town rallied in the latter stages, Davis miscued an effort while Sandford clawed away a corner from just under his crossbar.
To complete Sam Youngs’ misery, he was hospitalised after the game to have a nasty 3-cm gash, which is likely to take several days to heal, stitched up.
“We felt confident coming into the game and we had a really good 30 minutes when we scored,” said Gavin afterwards. “Credit to the lad for the equaliser but then we make a mistake for their second. They kept spinning it behind us and in truth we never got into our rhythm and didn’t create much in the second half. Eastbourne won’t stay in that position but this is a really poor result and I’m bitterly disappointed cos we’ve thrown points away and let ourselves down which I haven’t said many times. The reality is that it’s a results business and now we have to try to get something at Dorking and Dover.”
Forster; Benjamin, Thompson, Hawkins; Adom-Malaki (Jones 88), Brown (Knight 37), Bullas, Gallimore Parcell 88), Leonard; Youngs, Reynolds (Davis 60)