Warlingham held to draw

Combined Counties League Division One

Westfield 1 Warlingham 1

Warlingham were disappointed to be held to a draw at struggling Westfield.

The opening exchanges showed Warlingham looked a bit rusty after two weeks without a game and their normal fluent passing game was breaking down in key areas, the forward line of Janson, Mart and Ang who have been scoring for fun in recent games were starved of any service of note.

At the back Suckling, Bygraves and Micheal Brown were rarely threatened by the home team who seemed content to work hard and scrap for every ball in the midfield a tactic which somewhat frustrated Wars.

On 38 minutes Ang scored but was ruled offside and moments later Mart drew the keeper and squared to Ang who somehow managed to miss an empty goal from inches out and the half ended goaless.

At the break manager Mark Doherty and assistant Dave Featherstone reverted to a five man midfield with Anthony Williams playing behind Ang and Mart and the effect was more or less immediate.

Together with brother Richard and Paul Stewart, Williams began to create openings for Wars forwards with neat through balls.

On 58 minutes Ang broke free and was hauled down for the referee to award a penalty. Stewart made no mistake to put Wars ahead.

Five minutes later Mart and Rob Brown's short corner and resulting cross was cleared and Westfield broke and gained a corner from which they scrambled home an equaliser to make it level again.

Martin Bugden was introduced and had an immediate effect putting Ang through, again the quick forward hacked down but the referee waved away appeals for a penalty.

On 80 mins Bugden beat two players on the edge of the box and shot from 25 yards beating the keeper only to see his shot hit the underside of the bar and bounce to safety.

James Hodge replaced Mart on 82 mins and Bygraves went up front and on 88 the youngster got goal-side but shot wide and the game ended in a disappointing draw in what Doherty saw as two points dropped rather than one gained.