TOWN LOSE BOTTOM OF THE TABLE BATTLE.

HILLINGDON BOROUGH 3-2 AMERSHAM TOWN

This game, between two of the bottom three teams in the Division, was a contrast in styles. Amersham had the better players but were so agonisingly slow and ponderous in moving the ball that the opposition had ample time to defend in numbers. Hillingdon, on the other hand, passed the ball forward quickly, fully using the wings and stretching the Amersham defence. They gained their reward with the majority of chances and goals.

Amersham had looked the superior team when the first Hillingdon goal occurred in the fourteenth minute. In their first attack of note a long ball from midfield bypassed the Amersham defenders allowing Ash Hunt to run on, side step Alex Clarke in the Amersham goal and calmly pass the ball into the net.

Nine minutes later they almost increased the lead when another ball behind the defence found the Hillingdon forward but he slipped the ball past the post as Clarke came out to narrow the angle. Amersham were then unlucky not to equalise when a cross from the right found Joseph Madeinlo whose goal-bound shot rebounded off a defender and wide. They went one better on twenty nine minutes when a corner from the left eluded all the Hillingdon defence enabling Luke Symons to head home. Town then conceded just before the break. Two Amersham players collided enabling the Hillingdon midfield to pass the ball quickly into the space vacated and Rickeem Jones was on hand to knock the cross past the exposed Clarke.

Early in the second half, as Amersham sought to press forward, two quick Hillingdon breaks proved dangerous but no one was on hand to convert the crosses. At the other end, from a corner on the right, the ball ricocheted around the box but no forward was able to get a decisive touch allowing Michael Simpson in the Hillingdon goal to fall on the ball on the line.

Hillingdon seemed to have made the game safe in the seventy third minute when the ball was played in from the left and neither Clarke nor the defence was able to take control allowing the forward to slip the ball home. At last, on ninety minutes, Amersham played a quick ball out to the right wing and a perfect cross enabled Darnell Ramsey to drive home. But it was too little too late!

Amersham Town: Clarke, Devall, Mistretta, Hagan, Symons, Grant, Littleboy, Deritis, Thomas, Madeinlo, Ankah. Subs: Beaumont, Peacock, Aldridge, Ramsey.