West Essex 3 Clapton 2

Essex Senior League, Friday 10th December

I was over at Wadham Lodge on a cold Friday night to see West Essex take on Clapton, and three goals inside the opening twenty minutes proved enough for the hosts to take all three points after fighting off a comeback from the visitors.

The hosts came into this game in 14th position in the division and had just netted a decent win at St Margaretsbury last time out, and were thirteen points and four places above their opponents who had narrowly lost at home to Stansted last time out and were winless in the league for seven games, picking up just a point in that time.

And it looked like it would be a very long night for The Tons when West burst out of the blocks and found themselves three goals up in sixteen minutes to seemingly have complete control of the contest, they took a fourth minute lead when a ball into the box saw keeper and defender go for the same ball, the ball hit the defender and went into the path of David Bell who had the simplest task of slotting into an empty net.

And five minutes later it was two after Bell grabbed another one after curling home a delightful effort from outside the box, and the third goal came seven minutes after that when Bell struck another brilliant effort from range, and although this thumped against the bar, the ball came out and Cameron Gray who had the simple task of firing the ball into the net with the keeper out of commission after trying to save the Bell effort.

Game over then? Well, not quite, as the only saving grace for the visitors was that there was still plenty of time to turn it around, and in the 33rd minute they did pull one back to give themselves a lifeline after skipper Kirk McPherson curled home a lovely free kick from twenty yards out, so although West had dominated most of the half, they only had a 3-1 lead to show for it at the break.

Next goal then was as so often the case, crucial, and in the 63rd minute Clapton found it to really make it game on after what looked like a softly awarded penalty in my view, Raphael Duyile stepped up to fire home the spot kick, and now the game really could have gone either way, amazing after what happened in the opening exchanges.

The Tons did have openings to level and caused West some alarm, but West also had openings to seal the deal, but despite all of this West did hold on and claim the points, they made much more hard work of it than they should have, but credit must be given to the visitors who showed a lot of character here to almost grab something from the contest that looked lost early on.

The win does take West up two places to 12th and only a point off the top ten, whilst Clapton stay 18th and see their winless run continue.

Full time West Essex 3 Clapton 2