Match Report
County League: Division One
 Ringmer 1 Tidey 18 |  Horsham YMCA 3 Carden 73(pen) |
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| Source: Kevin Anderson, BBC Southern Counties Radio |
Billed as the Championship decider, a mud-and-thunder encounter at the Caburn kept us entertained and excited – but left us just slightly deflated by the 1-1 draw which actually decides nothing. Two good sides deserved better playing and weather conditions – the heavy rain from lunchtime left a skiddy top surface on which players were a bit afraid to play their football, and so often resorted to the long ball.
Early chances were few, but on 18 minutes Darren Tidey – the game’s brightest player – set the game alight for Ringmer. Turning inside his defender from the old inside right position, he looked up and pinged a lovely left-foot shot that curled into the top far corner.
The YM were derailed for a while, frustrated and sometimes discontent with each other. They did have two chances to level it, both falling to James Grant. He first volleyed high with a lot of goal to shoot at, and then saw his excellent looping header from a free-kick bashed out from right under the crossbar by a Ringmer boot. Other than that, the first half was really Ringmer’s. Could Horsham grab the game back in the second ?
It didn’t take too much of Johnny Crumplin’s footballing genius to decide at halftime that he needed to counter the persistent threat of Matt Duffield, who’d had the freedom of the right flank for Horsham – so Crumps replaced striker Gavin Jones with a left back, Danny Bird – but did he in the process send the wrong signals ? Certainly the home side were now defending deep and on the back foot – while YMCA poured down the Caburn Field slope at them.
Still the rain continued, heavy enough almost to wash the technicolor streaks from Chris Dicker’s natty hair style. There were little personal combats all over the field, and Ringmer for a while held defiantly firm around the defensive rock of Julian Curnow. But you felt something was likely to give. Ross Standen lost a through ball and a defender just slithered it to safety. Within seconds at the other end Matt Beeston was denied by a saving tackle as he sped on to Gareth Green’s diagonal feed, but this was a rare excursion for the home side.
On 73 mins Standen was penalised for bringing down Grant just outside the box, and the resulting free kick was handled in the area to allow Dean Carden to equalise triumphantly from the spot.
A Ringmer double substitution brought on fresh legs and the home side nearly wrested the initiative back. Dom Shepherd won a 20 yard free-kick which Dicker belted just too high – Ringmer indeed will look back with regret that they made poor use of corners and set pieces. Ian Chatfield got down just in time to smother Clay Lamont’s header and then brilliantly kept out Tidey from no more than 10 yards.
In the final two minutes either side could have nicked it. YM substitute Kris Trevor raced through a huge space, beat the keeper and saw his goal-bound shot stuck literally on the goal-line, and from the clearance Gareth Green was played in perfectly but suffered a bad bounce and the moment was gone.
Three games to go, and the strains of “Campione!” from the away dressing room implied that the title race is over. It isn’t quite – but it’s now the YM’s title to lose.