A strike 10 seconds from time from Fabio Revieccio kept Glenthorne United B's title hopes in their own hands as they overcame a resilient North London Raiders C in a gripping five-goal contest.
Here are the thoughts of Glenthorne manager Elliot Coulton:
Today was a great performance all round from the lads and we showed something today that's not been with us in recent weeks and that's 110 per cent effort from every player from off.
We didn't know what to expect with Raiders as obviously they've been banging in goals lately with a few new signings so we were ready for a more of a challenge than back in September. We started off the game really brightly having a majority of possession in the first half wind assisted. We didn't use the ball well in final third and it began to frustrate us. Raiders not having much of the ball actually created more clear-cut chances. Simon Bagel on his debut had a great game today against the twins for Raiders who were tricky players. The first half ended 0-0 and we felt if we could find that extra bit of quality in the final third our goal would come.
The second half was a lot closer with Raiders pushing for that goal along with us the game was very competitive. Thankfully we got our penalty and Fabio slotted it home for 1-0. Shortly after an incredible through ball by Dan Lassman put through Jamie Crawford and he finished off slotting it past the raiders keeper for 2-0.
With about 20 minutes to go the game really started to get physical with challenges going in and Raiders fighting for that first goal. Tireless running from Josh Hambling at centre half alongside the less agile Rich Rosenthal kept Raiders at bay. Raiders did win a penalty which was blasted over the bar, but a coming together between Rich and another player resulted in him getting sent off for a shove that the ref thought was a push in the face and to be honest was a ridiculous decision however Rich will be doing laps at training on Thursday followed by 1000 lines of "I will not be so stupid in the future!".
Ten minutes to go and down to 10 men, Raiders began pushing for that goal and it came after a messy clearance from a corner which resulted in a fantastic strike from Raiders captain Josh Graham which our keeper could do nothing about. Our players were in reserves tanks as we dug deep to keep the game at 2-1 missing a few good chances ourselves to finish the game off. But with two minutes to go I was deemed to have fouled a player inside the box at the corner of the penalty area which I thought was outside however they they scored to make it 2-2 and at that point we all felt like we'd lost the game. In the dying moments we just put everything in we had left, a well worked ball from a throw in resulted in Crawford slotting Fabio in who netted for the winner queue utter madness from the Glenthorne bench and about 150 stone of salmon bagels and harvester chicken (rocky horrors from Hambling) on top of Fabio!
The game was played in a good spirit and was very competitive. We showed that we could dig deep and had great character to go on and clinch the game. We can't play our free flowing football all the time and with 110 per cent effort every week I'm sure we'll have enough to take the league with some tough games to go. We have a massive game against Inter next week that could determine our season. Our players are on a high and we'll be well up for it!
Mom Josh hambling
