Match Report
County League: Division One
| Eastbourne Town 2 Odubade 34 Walsh 55 |
Horsham YMCA 0 |
Date:15th November 2003 Location:Eastbourne
Source West Sussex County Times
YM'S poor run of results continued after a disappointing trip to the South Coast.
Goals from Gary Brockwell and Yemi Odubade, who scored 78 times between them during Eastbourne Town's Division 2 championship win last year, condemned the visitors to a 2-0 defeat, a result which means YM have won only one of their last eight games.
"It's a difficult time," admitted YM manager John Suter. "We have got a lot of problems at the moment and I don't know how to sort them out. People are not playing to the best of their ability, there is a loss of confidence and the only thing we can do is get back to basics."
The Gorings Mead boss thought his players resembled cars in need of a quick once over. "We could do with an overall service."
Easthourne put the visitors under some early pressure and nearly took the lead when Brockwell capitalised on Dean Carden's mistake but could not beat James Plumley.
The young keeper was in the thick of the action minutes later to deny Brockwell for a second time but Leon Cumming should have opened the scoring when he headed over from point blank range.
At the other end of the field, there were few goalmouth incidents to get excited about and when YM did create an opening, Gil Taylor could not beat the Eastbourne keeper after being put through by the returning Ryan Andrews.
Much of Eastbourne's success last year was due to Odubade's goals and it was no surprise when he latched onto a through ball and put the hosts ahead.
The half finished frustratingly for YM. First Paul Young's shot rebounded off the keeper's face but there was no-one there to touch it in and minutes later Matt Duffleld drilled a left footed shot wide.
Easthourne went 2-0 up in comical circumstances ten minutes after the restart. A driven corner hit Nathan Sleat in the nether regions and when the ball was knocked back into the box, Lee Walsh deflected it home.
Plumley made sure Walsh did not double his tally with a good save but there was little to shout about in the Eastbourne box as both Young and Andy Lutwyche missed chances.
"It was a disappointing afternoon but we are getting a lot of disappointing afternoons," said Suter. "Eastbourne are not a great side and there was little between the sides except the goals."
Team: Plumley; Carden, Lutwyche, Durrant (Maynard 80), Sleat; Churchill, Duffield, Andrews (Brabon 75), OHara; Taylor (Davies 65), Young.