Blues show some fight in narrow loss to Chertsey
Marlow suffered only their second defeat of the season in Saturday’s narrow 1-0 loss to Chertsey Town at Oak Tree Road, but it would be difficult to argue they deserved much more from the contest after being largely outplayed in the first half.
Marlow boss Mark Bartley saw his side fall behind to a 14th minute penalty from former Windsor striker Billy Montague and the impressive looking visitors could and possibly should have extended their advantage prior to the break.
The Blues roused themselves for a more competitive second half showing, and just about shaded the second 45 minutes, however, any momentum they were gathering burst quite suddenly when Jordan Brown clashed with the Chertsey players and coaching staff in attempting to retrieve the ball for a throw in, an incident which led to a large melee and saw four shown red cards, including Brown and Bartley.
The Blues have shown they can scrap for points this season however, claiming four wins and two draws from their eight matches so far, and Dawid Rogalski in particular will be wondering how he didn’t draw the home side level in the second half.
The best of his chances saw him fire against the inside of the post from Naheer-Omar Nawaf's clever through ball.
He was later falling over and off balance as he attempted to tap home a late chance after Junaid Bell’s free kick had been parried by the Chertsey keeper.
Speaking afterwards Bartley said he felt the game was low on quality from both teams, however, that’s slightly harsh on Chertsey’s first half display which was several levels higher than Marlow’s.
“We started a bit slow, but I don’t think that they were brilliant either. I thought first half, we started ok in the first 10-15 minutes, then I thought they got on top of the game for the last half an hour of the first half.
“They ended going in front from a penalty, but I don’t think there was that much between the sides, and then I thought second half we were the better side.
“From that perspective the result was what it was. We had some chances but couldn’t take them, sometimes that happens in football.”
Despite the prevailing feeling off disappointment at the result – and his own dismissal – Bartley feels the Blues competed well against a team he fully expects to be competing for promotion this season.
The result drops the Blues down to fifth, a point above Southall, going into Saturday’s game at Hanworth Villa, while improving Chertsey are now up to third. They travel to Walton & Hersham this weekend.
“They’re one of the sides that will be fancied to win the league this season,” Bartley added.
“And I think we’ve matched up to them well today. That’s the encouraging bit. They hammered us here last season, but today was an awful lot closer.
“If we’d have got a point today, I don’t think anyone could have begrudged us that, and I thought we deserved at least that. But in football, sometimes you don’t get what you deserve.
“We now have a good week to get ourselves right for our next game and we’ll have to see what happens with all of this.”