sladevdeal270903

Thursday 01st September 2005

Laming is Green's Knight in shining armour

Slade Green 2-0 Deal Town

Saturday 27 September 2003

Go Travel Kent League Premier Division

by Robert Smith

Dave Martin and Sam Prett took their goal tally for the season to three apiece after both finding the net in Green's 2-0 win over Deal Town at The Small Glen.

Green opened their account after 8 minutes, having been awarded a corner on the left Dave Martin whipped the ball into the heart of the box and with no apparent danger keeper Tony Deer was the first to react only to quite bizarrely punch the ball into his own net.

Good play from Martin almost secured a second goal for the hone side 10 minutes later as his pass was superbly controlled by Tony Weir whose goalbound effort took a last ditch deflection.

Deal would have levelled the scores around the half hour mark if not for Green keeper Paul Vines. Jordon Barnett saw his angled shot tipped away by Vines and from the resulting corner Vines again thwarted Barnett as he snatched the ball away from the strikers head.

Green did again find the net 2 minutes before the interval as Perona dinked a free kick into the path of Prett only to see his goal disallowed for offside.

In a game of few chances Sam Prett could have found the net on 65 minutes as he met Marcos Perona's diagonal ball only to see his effort saved, while at the other end Lee Marjaram should have done better than plant his header over the bar with just Vines to beat.

The visitors continued to pressurise the Green rearguard and should have equalised with 9 minutes remaining. Barnett was presented with too much space but to his despair and Green's relief he quite amazingly blazed his effort wide of the Green goal.

Within seconds this blatant miss was almost punished as Prett bore down on goal and after being presented with a one on one situation with keeper Deer the Green hit man saw his strike flash across the face of the goal.

However, with his next opportunity Prett would make no mistake. With Pedro Knight no longer with the club his position was taken by Darren Laming and it was he who laid the foundations for the winning goal, following his industrious play Laming's pass set Prett away on a run down the wing and having cut inwards from the right Prett instead of squaring the ball decided to go it alone and unleash an audacious acute angle effort that ricocheted off the keeper into the back of the net.