Chelmsford City 2 Bishop's Stortford 1

Skrill South Division, Thursday 26th December 2013

Boxing day took me to Melbourne Stadium for a Skrill South Division clash between The Clarets and Stortford.  City had been trying to turn around a poor first half of the season in recent weeks following changes in management and staff.  Stortford have had a decent season to date so you would have fancied a close fought match.  However after an early half chance for Stortford the remainder of the half belonged to the home side as they played some awesome attacking passing football that time after time ripped the away side to shreds.  Luke Callander, signed from Heybridge Swifts last month, was a handful and he was the man whose double helped Chelmsford into a 2-0 lead at the break.  The first goal after 14 minutes was an exquisite move when Smith's wonderful crossfield ball found the dangerous Ward and his ball inside to Callander was struck first time by the striker past the outstretched arm of the keeper for a wonderful goal.  The second goal came on 25 minutes when Aaron Greene set up Luke Callander who struck low and hard into the corner after picking up a fortuitous ricochet to make it 2-0 to City. They could and should of added to this and could of easily been five up at the break such was their dominance. The second half was a far more even affair although City did have their chances to finally kill off the away side once and for all. But they failed to do this and on 78 minutes a cross from Harry Baker found Enver-Marum inside the six yard box and he headed past the keeper to make it 2-1 and game well and truly on. City now had their backs to the wall and the final ten minutes belonged to the away side but Chelmsford battled hard to hold onto the goal lead. Twice in the last five minutes they hacked headers off the goal line and then Stortford headed wide with one final chance right at the death. So City end up clinging onto all three points after dominating for most of the afternoon but hold on they did and this is another three points to turning the season around they will hope for sure.