Cray Wanderers 2019-20 – That was the season that wasn’t – A pictorial review
Match 2 – 13/8/19 – Cray Wanderers vs Folkestone Invicta
Pictures: Kindly provided by Jon Hilliger (keeping his photos alive)
Cray Wanderers 2 Coker 41, 50
Folkestone Invicta 3 Dos Santos 3, 81, Te Horst 90+2
The first home match back in the Isthmian Premier on a gloomy night under the lights but a great advert for the league as the two sides who were 2nd and 3rd at the end served up an early classic with a sting in the tail.
Folkestone got off to a flyer when Jerson Dos Santos intercepted a back pass and stroked the ball into the net and Invicta almost scored another but Josh Vincent’s header was cleared off the line by Tom Carlse. Cray though were creating chances and Bradley Pritchard hit the bar from Jerome Federico’s cross.
The Wands levelled in the 41st minute when Andre Coker on his home debut tucked home a tidy finish after a Federico cross with a smart turn and shot. Then Pritchard shot just over.
Five minutes into the second half Cray went in front when Pritchard set up Coker and his near post cross-shot was deflected past the keeper.
Cray came close to putting the game to bed with Charlie Allen heading against the bar from 10 yards and then Freddie Parker was desperately unlucky to see his shot from 30 yards thud back off the bar.
However, Folkestone were smart and Dos Santos curled a home a beauty nine minutes from time and then Kieron McCann from close range was denied by a remarkable save from Lewis Carey turning the ball over with an open goal gaping.
The game was going from end to end and two minutes into stoppage time Johann Te Horst was quickest to react from a throw in and fired home the winner which was hard on Cray but perhaps a sign that this league would be less forgiving to the South-East Champions
Cray Wanderers: Lewis Carey, Barney Williams (Capt.), Tom Carlse, Mitchell Nelson, Tom Phipp, Lee Lewis (Charlie Allen, H/T), Bradley Pritchard, Freddie Parker (Karl Dent, 77), Jerome Federico (Tom Murphy, 74), Andre Coker, Joe Taylor Subs: Charles Etumnu, Joe Vines
Att: 240
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS – COURTESY OF FIFC TV
The Post-match thoughts of Tony Russell
“Credit to Folkestone, they were very dangerous on the counterattack and we were a bit naïve at times and left ourselves open. Yet second half we should really have won the game and we hit the woodwork three times in the match.
I thought 1st half we were sloppy as a whole and wasn’t really sure what was up with us, For me, the Bradley Pritchard chance and Charlie Allen’s in the second half where he’s hit the bar from four yards were both misses and should really have both scored.
(On Andre Coker) Andre is Andre and he is class, some of the things he did lit the game up. Jerome Federico I thought was fantastic too. That’s the annoying thing we did some really good things but at the moment we have a centre midfielder playing centre back and we miss having Tom Phipp in midfield with the discipline he gives us and we miss Jay Leader back in defence. We’ve shown we have the firepower to score goals at this level but what we can’t do is be as open as we were.
I thought we had the game and control in the second half and hit the bar twice at 2-1. If one of those goes in I’m sure we would have gone on to win but that didn’t happen, they switched formation which we didn’t react to quick enough and gave two really cheap goals away.
Their third goal it’s injury time and we’ve got a man down injured and we’ve played a short free kick rather than wait for Ally to come on and they score from that. We’ve taken it short and they’ve broken down the other end and the cross has come over and we haven’t dealt with it and suddenly it is 3-2″.
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