Away trip down to Little Oakley a 150 mile round trip that’s just madness for a Semi Pro league game, just count my lucky stars that this wasn’t midweek game or I would have been camping overnight I think, so the day started at 11:30am as we set off in the mini bus from Stratford down to Little Oakley, I could tell by the ride that it was not the same feeling around the squad something was missing but we move forward so an hour and 30 minutes and we arrived at Memorial Ground home to Little Oakley Football Club
As soon as we arrived at the ground we was welcomed by the staff of Little Oakley and offered Tea or Coffee and that which was a lovely touch from them, again when all the players where in changing rooms didn’t have the same buzz about it I couldn’t work out what had happened but maybe that could be the reason for why we are on this losing steak like we are, the line ups where handed to official
| Little Oakley Starting Line Up | Athletic Newham Starting Line Up |
| 1 Michael Bett
2 Rory Harman © 3 Adrian Cant 4 Daniel Smith 5 Reece Keating 6 George Davis 7 Jordi Papple 8 Mohammad Amir 9 Darren Mills 10 Daniel Rowe 11 Bobby Rea
Subs Bench 12 Jack Ladbrook 14 Bobby Badham 15 Blake Keogh-Kedar 16 Liam Riley 17 Noah Asterlind |
1 Lindrit Beqiri
2 Derek O’Halem 3 Louis Hiobi 4 Daniel Udanoh 6 Abubakar Sadiq Mohammed 7 Leonardo De Carvalho Pedro 8 George Rankin 10 Anderson Silva Baro © 12 Charlie Campbell 14 Jaime Obama Nvumba 20 Alex Kozak
Sub Bench Tychique Kinkela Abdul Khamis James Runham Victor Ferrini Calvyn Massala |
The first 20 minutes of the game was just both teams testing each other out the most entertainment we got was one of our coaches was booked for something he said.
The first real chance of the game fell to Little Oakley as they Intercepted the ball just outside Athletic Newham box and they tried a shot to try and catch Lindrit Beqiri but he was behind the shot the whole time but it drop just as it got to him and he couldn’t help knocking it out for a corner, from the corner a Little Oakley player (Couldn’t see the number due to the bodies in the way) manager to get right under the ball and sky it well over the bar and out of the ground from within the six yard box, BIG let off for Athletic Newham as if he knew just how much time he had he could have brought it down and broke the deadlock for Oakley.
The game went back to playing it around the middle neither keeper getting tested at all apart from how good their goal kicks are, 34 minutes on the clock Athletic Newham had their first real attack as Leonardo De Carvalho Pedro beats the highline of Little Oakley and beats the Goalkeeper but the lack of power gave the Little Oakley player enough time to get back to clear the goal line.
Moment after that Leonardo De Carvalho Pedro found him self in the referee book for a sinbin as he disagreed with Referee over a foul, he didn’t give for the tackle on Anderson Silva Baro.
So Athletic Newham had to play the rest of the first half with 10 men as Leonardo De Carvalho Pedro wouldn’t be able to play till the second half, Why Leo was off the pitch that must have switched Athletic Newham on as they started to attack the Little Oakley goal with Alex Kozak running up and down the wing and this time 5 minutes till the break broke the back line of Little Oakley couldn’t get the shot in but pulled it back to play across the box but Little Oakley player got in there before anything could come of it and the ball was cleared for a corner kick to Athletic Newham.
The corner was taken and cleared but wasn’t clear fully but lucky for Little Oakley Jaime Obama Nvumba got to much under the ball to get on the scoresheet at this moment as he saw his shot go high over the cross bar.
Moments before half time Athletic Newham had a golden chance to go 1-0 up with again Alex Kozak broke down the left hand side for Athletic Newham beat his man and all he had to do was pull it back of Jaime Obama Nvumba to tap in to the net but the Referee pick that moment to blow his whistle as Louis Hiobi was down holding his head, 30 seconds later and Athletic Newham would have been 1-0 up why the Physio got on helping Louis Hiobi.
Half Time
Little Oakley 0-0 Athletic Newham
Second half started the way the first half finished and that was with Athletic Newham on top and within a minute of the restart Alex Kozak was at it again this time linking up with Derek O’Halem who played a lovely ball into the box to the head of Jaime Obama Nvumba but he just couldn’t keep the ball down.
7 minutes gone in the second half and Obama was at it again this time in a foot race with the Defence which he won so he found him self running towards goal just the Goalkeeper to beat but he shot it straight at him so easy save for the goalkeeper
2 subs within 6 minutes of each other is where the game really changed as at this point due to having to take of Right Back & Left Back due to both of them being injured that was the turning point and that’s when the game drifted away from Athletic Newham, it didn’t take long for Little Oakley to take advantage of the fact of having players out of position within the space of 5 minutes they scored to goal to wrap the game up,
First goal coming on 70th minute when Little Oakley where able to turn the ball over just outside the Newham box but then player was then fouled a silly place to give away a foul and Number 10 Daniel Rowe for Little Oakley steps up and score from the freekick it wasn’t anything special but it found the back of the net and that’s all that counts, 75th minute is where Little Oakley went and won the game as the game plan they had from early on in the game to pile it on the Athletic Newham goalkeeper to stop him being able to jump and it worked this time as Little Oakley had 3 players on him with no reply and there was Bobby Badham unmarked at the back post to header in for 2-0 and the game winner,
The rest of the game mainly was Athletic Newham attacking and trying to get back into the game but Little Oakley where taking everything throw at them and clearing the lines and keeping Michael Bett Cleansheet on track, The referee did finally blow for Full Time
Full Time
Little Oakley 2-0 Athletic Newham
Full respect to Little Oakley they took advantage of a VERY poor Athletic Newham display and deserved and took all three points with a bonus of a Cleansheet, well we will be back down here in like 10 days for our Peter Butcher Memorial Cup match on Tuesday 1st October