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Thursday 17 September 2009 Ryman Youth League, West Division
Staines Town took all three points in this excellent encounter at Banstead Athletic last night. AFC put out a very young team with 12 first year players out of a squad of 16. With Harry Knock, Matt Harmsworth and James Cottee all missing from last weeks side this was always going to be a tough encounter and so it proved.
Staines, always a very good side started very brightly and should have scored two or three goals in the first 20 minutes, it was only poor finishing and two superb saves from Sujit Dadar that kept AFC in the game early on. Danny Carter did reply to the Staines pressure with a 25 yard effort that went wide. Gradually AFC came back into the game and had their best spell towards the end of the half, so it was then that Staines would score in this period when on the stroke of half time a good passing move from Staines resulted in a midfield player breaking through and heading over Dadar for a 1 - 0 half time lead.
Half Time 0 - 1
AFC were much better in the second period and played some good football, Staines always looked dangerous especially on the counter attack. Half chances came and went for AFC and with time running out Jordan Hutchinson replaced Josh Ayers, whilst Hamsher gave way to Juevan Spencer and Luke Gambin to Wilson Gondwe. The closest AFC came to equalising was when Harry Bearman broke through the Staines rearguard getting to the byline where his cross was agonisingly missed by a couple of players before being cleared. AFC gave everything but with time running out Staines broke away down the right where a Staines substitute superbly lobbed Sujit Dadar in the Wimbledon goal. This was a cruel blow but the young Dons came back with a last minute goal from a Harry Bearman free kick that found Callum Wellburn who headed home well. The final couple of minutes was pressure from AFC but Staines deservedly held on to win.
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