A refereeing decision that will be the subject of an appeal negated this as an
equal competition from as early as the 20th second, when a loose ball forward,
virtually from the kick off, was touched by hand outside the left hand edge of the
box by Alfie Marriott and the referee produced a red card. To award a red, the
keeper has to be denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity and with at least
two Kings’ defenders between the keeper and goal, it was hard to see how this
could be the case. With no reserve keeper on the bench (Jack Berman having
joined the now infamous injury list), Kyle Connolly went in goal and produced a
more than acceptable performance against the odds.
Langley adopted a resolute reaction to the thought of playing the whole match
with only ten men and it took a quarter of the encounter before a low cross into
an extremely crowded box rebounded off Jorell Johnson into the net to reinforce
the belief that one of their number had run over a black cat!
Impressive Aldershot loanee Elis Watts scored a fine individual goal on his
debut for Farnborough, driving hard at the defence and unleashing an
unstoppable 15 yard drive to give an interval scoreline of 2-0.
The spirit of the visitors remained undimmed however and eight minutes into
the second period they produced another interpassing move, the like of which
had seen them fashion a couple of good chances in the first half. Roddy Collins
received the ball far left, his shot was blocked, but laid off to Bradley Wadkins,
whose legs were taken from him as he was about to shoot, As the visiting fans
demanded a penalty, Harry Crawford saved the referee the decision by
smacking the loose ball home and the scoreline took on a different look.
But a penalty for handball crushed any hopes of an unlikely comeback and tired
legs conceded another as the match ground to its conclusion, whereupon a
sporting and somewhat sympathetic crowd applauded Kings from the field.
The Hertfordshire side remain confident, that if given the rub of the green at
last, they can move up the table, but the question remains. Who killed the cat?