Pestle goal is not enough as Fleet fall to defeat in front of biggest crowd of season
FLEET Town lost 3-1 to AFC Croydon Athletic in the Combined Counties League Premier South at a packed the Mustard Seed Stadium on Saturday.
With Fleet looking for a return to winning ways and Croydon, under Jermaine McGlashan, seeking to advance their play-off hopes, an exciting and close encounter was expected.
Fleet Town carved out the first chance of the afternoon in the second minute when Brad Manning ran forward to collect a long ball. He advanced to the box, with only the keeper to beat, and decided to lob the keeper but the ball stayed high and flew over the bar.
It was 20 minutes into the game before the visitors had their first sight of goal but Daryl Siaw’s effort sailed high over the bar.
A couple of minutes later Fleet Town took the lead when Liam Pestle threw himself towards the ball being played in from a freekick and got his head to it at the near post, to glance it into the goal.
Fleet could have added another a few minutes later, when a fine move between Mihail Marinescu and Brad Manning set up the shooting chance for Jubril Hassan, but his shot was saved.
As the half progressed the visitors were coming more into the game but their attacks were thwarted by strong defending from Rayon Atkinson, Josh Nunes and Brad Manning and the score remained at 1-0 to Fleet until half-time.
Any element of luck deserted
Fleet in the second half with the run of the ball favouring AFC Croydon, who were looking more and more dangerous going forward. After 55 minutes an initial shot from the Rams was blocked but the loose ball ran straight to the foot of Pierrick Keuteha, who made no mistake in firing the ball into the net for the equaliser.
On 65 minutes Croydon took the lead as Andre Coker found himself totally unmarked in the middle of the box. As the ball reached him, he fired it into the bottom corner of the net and ten minutes later Coker took a freekick 20 yards out and curled the ball round the wall into the corner of the goal to make it 3-1 to Croydon.
As the sides made more changes, Croydon changed to a more defensive set-up to hold onto their lead, allowing Fleet to press on and created a couple of late chances, in added time, with a cross come shot from Sam Marks floating over the bar and right at the end a header from Dan Bone also cleared the crossbar.
Although most of Fleet’s biggest home crowd of the season (449) left disappointed, they had witnessed an exciting game, the three points lift AFC Croydon into fifth and a play-off position, while Fleet Town drop a place to tenth.
Fleet Town are back in action tonight (Wednesday) with an away trip to Croydon to play Balham before a home game at The Mustard Seed Stadium on Tuesday (February 13) when Alton will be the visitors.