Eastbourne Town 2 Walton & Hersham 1

Saturday 4 September 2010. Ryman League, Division One South.

With less than a quarter of an hour remaining Swans looked like picking up their first away win of the season, as they led 1-0 and were looking comfortable and well in command. But they then gifted the home side an equaliser with a bizarre own goal, and with ten minutes remaining allowed them their first serious shot on target, which beat goalkeeper Dean Ruddy to give them a 2-1 win.

For the second season running in this fixture Swans are entitled to be less than satisfied with the referee’s performance. Five minutes before the break Scott Todd got past home defender Charlie Farmer to be clean through on goal, only to be pulled back by the Eastbourne captain. Despite Farmer clearly being the last defender he was only shown a yellow card rather than a red.

Two minutes earlier David Baker’s driven cross from the right seemed to be handled by a home defender in the box, but only a corner-kick was awarded. A fair degree of leniency was also shown as Todd and Ray Powell in particular were subjected to several crude challenges. With left-back Ryan Lake unfit Baker had started the match on the right, with Bernard Asante moving to the left-side. Felipe Marques De Lima made his first start, and with Avun Jephcott returning, Adrian Butler joined Troy Oham-Strachan in dropping to the bench.

A further change soon had to be made, as with less than ten minutes played Matt York picked up a deep gash above the eye and could not continue, Oham-Strachan coming on. The Swans’ skipper was taken off to the local hospital to have the wound stitched. A reshuffled defence was slow to settle in the early stages, and when Eastbourne’s Ashley Robinson took a corner from the right Peter Cooper put a header over. Swans gradually got more into the game, and with twenty minutes played Jephcott got the ball to Asante on the left, and he did well to get in a cross to the far-post, that was just too long for Todd.

Ray Powell then got through to have a shot blocked by home keeper Kieron Thorp, but was judged offside, despite the ball clearly being played back by an Eastbourne player. Asante’s throw-in from the left was nodded on by Powell, but Todd was just closed out in the box. This was followed by Swans’ unsuccessful claim for a penalty, and Todd’s break that was ended by Farmer’s illegal challenge. With half-time approaching Marques De Lima drove in a good, low, left-foot strike from 30 yards that Thorp took on his line. With twelve minutes of the second-half played Marques De Lima was replaced by Butler, and the substitution bore fruit after just a minute.

Todd’s trickery allowed him to beat his marker on the right, before he sent over a left-foot cross to the far-post, where Butler headed firmly past Thorp to give Swans the lead. Todd went close again when he sent a shot dipping over from the edge of the box after Powell had nodded down Antonio Simeone’s knock forward. Ruddy was called into rare action when he did well to take a firmly struck cross from the right, but Swans seldom looked like surrendering the lead until a crazy piece of defending in the 76th minute. An Eastbourne cross from the right posed no danger and reached Todd inside the left of the box.

Todd tried to head back to Ruddy, but the ball was too wide to the keeper’s left and his full length dive failed to prevent it rolling onto the right-post and going over the line, with home player Brad Manton following up to make sure. This knocked Swans out of their stride, and with ten minutes left a rare Eastbourne attack led by Robinson resulted in a build-up inside the right of the box, and when the ball came out to Sam Crabb, he beat Ruddy with a well-struck shot into the right, top corner. Ruddy had to make a good block when Marcus Harley broke clear as Swans pushed up, and the visitors last chance of salvaging a point came and went deep into stoppage-time when Baker’s free-kick from the left failed to pick out a team-mate in the box.

Swans’ Team: Dean Ruddy, Bernard Asante, David Baker, Felipe Marques De Lima (Adrian Butler 57’), Matt York (Troy Oham-Strachan 11’), Antonio Simeone, Nick Barnes, Louis Clark, Ray Powell (Bryan Neulube 80’), Scott Todd, Avun Jephcott. Subs. not used: Callum Donaghey, Frank Wilson. Scorer: Butler (58’).

Eastbourne Team: Thorp, Simmonds, Moffatt (Koroma 67’), Farmer, Brooks, Davidson, Patton, Crabb, Cooper (Harley 72’), B. Manton (Carruthers 83’), Robinson. Subs. not used: G. Manton, Copehill. Scorers: Todd, own goal (76’), Crabb (80’). Cautions: Farmer, foul (39’), Brooks, foul (67’), Koroma, foul (81’).