Rushden & Diamonds 5 Farnborough 5

Match Report courtesy of Unofficial Rushden & Diamonds Website (1997-2001)

Vauxhall Conference

13.09.97 – Nene Park (Attendance: 2051)

Diamonds Team : Cherry , Hamsher, Cramman , Mison, Rodwell, Fuff , Hackett, Butterworth, Foster , Collins , Underwood . Subs: Rawle, Peaks and Wooding.

Goal scorers and time of goals: RDFC: Foster 12 mins, 39 mins, 52 mins 76 mins and Underwood 37 mins.
Webmaster MoM: Adrian Foster

Match Report :

Its a job to know where to start with this report! How often does any team, let alone Diamonds score five goals at home and only walk away from the game with a point. How often does a player in his debut start match score FOUR goals and fail to be on a winning team? But this all happened to Diamonds today. A great performance from the front by Foster and Collins, who ran the Farnborough defence ragged, was put in the shadows by the defence letting in five goals. Not all of the blame however can be loaded on to the defence, as the midfield players failed to get a grip on the game in the second half. Gary Butterworth seems to be lacking the zip of last season while Michael Mison occasionally lost his head as he was caught out of position on a few occasions. Take nothing away from Farnborough who took all of their chances well.

Foster started the goal spree in the 12 minute by flicking on a free kick taken by Underwood just outside the box. It looked as though the goalkeeper would have it covered but it ran along the ground and found the back of the net. Farnborough levelled the score with a well taken goal before Underwood scored on 37 minutes. When Foster added a third on 39 minutes Diamonds looked to be coasting. But a great strike from just outside the box from Whitfield on 44 minutes brought Farnborough a life line at just the right moment. Slack marking again was the cause of the goal, but Diamonds went into half-time wondering how they had let Farnborough back into the match.

When Farnborough equalised early in the second half you wondered which way the game would turn. In came Foster to the rescue again with goals on 52 and 76 minutes. Five three up, fourteen minutes to play and three points in the bag. WRONG!!! Two goals in a minute from Farnborough and you were suddenly thinking that the un-thinkable was about to happen. It should be said that the fourth Farnborough goal was completely down to a goalkeeping error of judgement. Steve Cherry undecided whether to come for a ball or stay on his line, made the wrong decision and the ball was looped into the net. At the point of 5 goals to four one would have expected a possible substitution from BT. With both Andy Peaks and Tim Wooding on the bench, in hindsight maybe a change should have been made. None was, and a fifth Farnborough goal came shortly after.

Adrian Foster was presented with the Man of the Match and the match ball but he must be wondering why two precious points slipped by. Diamonds have some difficult games coming up, away at Yeovil and Southport and then home to Woking and Hereford. We saw today signs of an understanding up front between Foster and Collins, a fine performance particularly in the first half from Hackett and Underwood, but a shaky performance at the back. The commitment lacking in previous games has returned, and lets hope that a consistency of performance will now start to be seen. We need to string together a few good results to get the confidence up. Even with a two goal lead the players are jittery and lack the ability to kill off the game.

Good luck to the lads on the road for the next games and lets hope that Foster scores another four in each of the forthcoming games and we don’t let in quite so many.

See here for Video highlights of this game.