Higgins Group London LeagueDivision OneEast Grinstead III 5 Chelmsford II 1TURNING up with the bare 11 was made worse by the sight of a 16 strong East Grinstead squad.

Higgins Group London League

Division One

East Grinstead III 5 Chelmsford II 1

TURNING up with the bare 11 was made worse by the sight of a 16 strong East Grinstead squad. Chelmsford started the game well but were under constant pressure from a very different looking EG squad to the team they beat in the first half of the season. The seconds absorbed the pressure well and even counterattacked, coming close on a number of occasions.

With more pressure before the half was up, it fell to Adrian Ericsson with some fantastic saves in goal to keep the score at 0-0 at half time.

Chelmsford were very pleased with the score line so far and would have settled for the full time whistle there and then! During the second half EG piled on more pressure and this was added by two of their first team players who had returned from their premier league game versus Southgate. After a while the increased pressure from EG paid off and they broke away to score the opener. Celebrations were brief as most of the EG team did not know the name of the scorer.

From then on the game started to go EG's way with another goal, before Chelmsford came back from an unorthodox short corner with DJ Carts scoring from a close range rebound.

The game looked close again until more counter attacking from EG gave them another goal before a solo effort from one of their second-half recruits put them 4-1 up. Just before the final whistle EG got another short corner that was converted high into the back of the goal by the EG captain.

Special thanks go to 4th XI captain Adrian Ericsson who had a brilliant game in goal and risked severe marital penalties to play for us, and also Tufty who played in his first second team league game.

Next week, like the first team, Chelmsford travel to fifth placed local rivals Old Loughts who have been on a winning streak of late. The game is due to start at 1pm on Saturday.