12thsept04

Sittingbourne take their chances

SITTINGBOURNE won their first Southern League Division One East game of the season on Saturday, winning 4-1 at Leighton Town, and manager Mark Beeney admitted his side have been threatening to punish teams all season, writes Stephen McCartney.

Although the Bourne Park outfit are still bottom of the table, with four points from their opening seven league games, and are already out of the FA Cup, Beeney hopes the victory at Leighton will be a springboard and a chance to climb the table in the near future.

"We scored four excellent goals," Beeney beamed.

"Obviously the two in the second half killed the game off, and I feel it's what we have threatened to do to a few teams this year.

"The only difference was - we took our chances on Saturday!"

Missing chances has been the problem for Sittingbourne this season, but the manager added: "The league table isn't telling a lie, but I think our performances deserved more than what we got out of them.

"Basically, our problem was we didn't take our chances, and yesterday we did."

Beeney, however, was pleased with his side's 1-1 draw at Lymington & New Milton in the FA Cup Preliminary Round, but expected more from his team in the replay - which they went on to lose 2-1 in front of their own fans.

"We played ok at their place and I think we deserved a draw", he said.

"When we got them back to our place, we played extremely well for 35 minutes but didn't take the chances to kill the game off.

"And unfortunately we paid the price to a sloppy start to the second half."

Lymington & New Milton travel to Ryman Leaguers Molesey in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup on Saturday, but Beeney will be hoping hamstring injury victims Shane Campbell and Dave Hassett will recover in time for their next league game - at home to Berkhamsted Town in two weeks time.

"I don't think we are a million miles off from midtable, but we do need to get a run of results together now." Beeney admitted.

He added: "Basically, we just have to build on the result at Leighton Town.

"The confidence is up now and we have to make sure it stays up.

"If we can play the way we can play, then there is no-one in this league to fear - but we are our own worse enemy at times."