Kings Hill draw with Snodland Town Reserves in hard fought derby
Kings Hill 1 v 1 Snodland Town Reserves
Honours were even in Kings Hill’s local derby with Snodland Town Reserves, with a 1-1 draw a fair result in a hard fought contest. The Spitfires only had one change in their starting eleven from the previous week, with Morgan Williamson taking the place of the unavailable James Cheeseman and they started brightly with neat passing and possession. However, the visitors, solid defensively and well marshalled by experienced campaigner Stuart West, made it difficult to turn possession into chances.
The closest effort came when George Sibley cut inside from the right and put a left footed effort just wide of the post. This was to be Sibley’s last meaningful contribution to the match as he soon left the field with an injury, to be replaced by George Ellis.
The momentum in the game switched following a miscue by Kings Hill goalkeeper Harvey Mills when clearing a through ball, leading to a foul adjudged to be on the edge of the box resulting in a Snodland free kick.
The visitors felt that the incident was inside the box and that Mills should have received a red not a yellow card – their protests led to one of their unused substitutes being dismissed after an exchange with the linesman. The resulting free kick was sent narrowly over the bar but Snodland started to seize some impetus after this point creating increasing problems for the home defence. Towards half time the visitors earned another free kick on the edge of the box. This time as a low shot was spilled by Mills and Snodland reacted quickest to the follow up to bundle home and go into the break in front.
Kings Hill replaced Keaton Courtman, who was on a yellow card, at half time with Vinny Wade and continued to play attractive football without really being able to penetrate the away defence. Despite the efforts of both forward lines, defences were on top. Kings Hill continued to probe though, led by Mackenzie Gardiner, and with around twenty minutes to play, the home side got their reward and drew level. The tireless Keiron Kennerley gained possession in midfield and carried the ball forward before clipping a through ball that Gardiner latched onto before lobbing the retreating away goalkeeper with the ball rolling into an empty net.
Nathaniel Waul replaced Will Seage and the final twenty minutes were end to end seeing Ellis go close with an angled shot after good build up play and then Wade nearly put the hosts in front as he flashed a header just wide from a corner. It was Snodland that came the closest in this period though after a cross into the box was met with a powerful header forcing Mills into a fine save low to his left.
However, neither side could ultimately break the deadlock and the teams deservedly shared the points.
“A fair result in the end really, we felt a bit disappointed not to come away with all 3 but we didn’t create enough chances from our entries into the final 3rd which is something we’re looking into as we have to start creating more.
It was a proper battle of a game which was always going to be in a local derby like that and both teams were at it, which is always an enjoyable game really.
Its been an interesting few weeks with us finding ourselves with probably not the points total we’d like, but performances are starting to improve and we’re looking a lot more positive at the moment compared to how we finished October really”Patrick Lee
