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The Stones tasted defeat for the
first time in the League Cup tonight as VCD Athletic
swept to a 2-0 victory at Bourne Park.
A changed starting line-up saw a
debut for young Richard Mannerings in the Stones goal,
Matt Nicholl returning to the squad in midfield after
a spell with Snodland and Sperring partnering Rowland
up front, with both Takaloo and Tydeman rested on the
bench.
Early on, the changes to the Stones line-up seemed
to make little difference to the squad with Stones dominant
in possession. The first chance duly fell for the Stones
on 4 minutes from a Lacy long throw which was cleared
by former Stones favourite Paul Foley only as far as
Simon Austin who fired his shot just over the bar. Foley
was also at fault again 4 minutes later as his lazy
back pass was almost intercepted by Sperring and only
a brave save by the keeper prevented the striker from
turning it into the net.
Then after only one brief foray into the Stones penalty
area, VCD took the lead on 13 minutes from their first
corner. Flicked on at the near post, James Brown headed
into the 6 yard box and with Stones struggling to clear,
Danny Penney latched on to a volley and fired it into
the roof of the net.
Stones tried to respond when Ryan Royston found Austin
on the edge of the box but his shot sailed well over
the bar.
The game continued for much of the half following the
pattern of Stones having the possession, resorting to
the long ball game and failing to create any chances
whilst VCD looked threatening on the break.
But the Stones showed a brief glimmer of what they
are capable of in injury time when Sperring turned and
ran into the box on a diagonal, with Barton then running
across him, taking up the ball and finding a gap in
the 6 yard box to shoot, but keeper Grant Wallis turned
it round the post.
After the break is was VCD in the ascendancy with Stones
lacking any creativity in front of goal preferring to
depend on the Aaron Lacy long throw. To try and turn
things around Mo Takaloo came on for the quiet Nick
Hegley. But within a minute VCD had doubled their lead
when Craig Roser attempted to head back to Mannerings.
The header was way too soft and Lee Coburn was alert
enough to intercept the header, and slot home.
Sadly the Stones still failed to respond and never
looked threatening until the last five minutes. First,
there was a chance for Mo when he was put through on
goal only for a last ditch tackle preventing him from
scoring and then a minute later everyone on the pitch
and the crowd saw the ball cross the line from a Matt
Nicholl shot which hit the back post then the near post
before bouncing over the line. Sadly the only person
not to see it was of course the referee and so it ended
2-0 to VCD and who now lead our group.
After the game Alan Walker said he was; “very,
very disappointed with that performance, I think a lot
of the players took the game too lightly and just seemed
to be going through the motions and to play like that
whilst only being 3-4 players off a full strength side
is not what we wanted to see.”
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