Defeat on the road

After the poor start to the season and the recent debacle at Haverhill Borough, it was with some trepidation Long Melford travelled 77 miles, to the large Community facility which is the home of FC Peterborough.

Fancied for the title and only dropping one point thus far, FC Peterborough proved to be a strong opposition, a young, fleetfooted team, they were a handful for much of the game.  

Melford welcomed back Alfie Carroll from suspension, but were minus skipper Jacob Brown and Dek Roy due to injury plus Wiil Thorp who recently left  the Club to join Lakenheath. 

Melford kicked off the with strong down pitch wind at their backs, but in reality failed to turn that it into a benefit with a few corners, and only two shots to trouble Sarvunas Snitakas in the home goal.

The home team went ahead after 19 minutes a scramble in the Melford goalmouth saw the ball ping pong around, and the large menacing  striker in the form of  DAVID YSALI claimed the goal. 

Although Melford had their share of the ball they always looked very pedestrian against the pace  of Ayman Trabusi and  Junior  Augusto the tricky and pacy wide men for the home team.

On 37 minutes  Sam  Markwick went off injured for Melford to be replaced by  Jeckson Rosa a late signing from Thetford Town.

A good chance came for Wiil Wingfield  after a defensive error by Adam Mahmood, but the ball ran out play.

In first half added time  Peterborough got their second goal  when speculative shot from 25 yards from DAVID YSALI caught  in a gust of wind and evaded the stretched hands of Ben Moye in the Melford goal. 

Melford defended well against the odds in the second half, and were unfortunate to concede a  third goal towards the end of the game, when a clearance by Toib Adeyemi, rebounded off a Melford player into the path of  DERICK  DEDZIE for a close range conversion.

As a well known politician once pronounced “Things can only get better”  with changes afoot and more players in the pipeline hopefully that will be the case for Melford!   CHENOBERET

LONG MELFORD: Moye, Utting, Adeyemi, Carroll, Crowe, Jake Jackson (capt), Crisp, J Gibbs, Markwick, Hughes, Wingfield

Subs used: Rosa, Charway, Lombardo