Page 11 - RPVFC v Northwood 14.10.23
P. 11

RAYNES PARK VALE  23|24                                               UP THE VALE






 MATCH  Date  SAT 30TH SEPT 2023  Within one minute of the restart   On 77 mins Badshot’s Nas   simply stopped playing football
                                                        and contented themselves with
                                Regragrui latched onto a long
       a well taken curling effort from
 REPORT  Kick off  15:00  Attendance 181  nestled into the back of the   Billy Bishop and slotted home   line. In reality, they were doing
                                ball from Billy Oram, ran past
       Badshot’s Baback Dehghani
                                                        passing the ball along their back
       Raynes Park goal and with it went
                                to put the score at 1-4 and even
                                                        Raynes Park a favour.
       the belief that the home team
                                then Vale’s day wasn’t over. An
 Competition
       points. Instead Vale imploded.
                                saved by Badshot’s Cawdron
 SOUTH-CENTRAL  would return to snatch three   80th minute penalty for Vale was
                                and, Brad Sweeney’s attempts
 RAYNES PARK VALE    1   BADSHOT LEA    4  A straight red for dissent saw
                                to wrest the ball from the keeper
       Louie Downey heading for an
                                was enough, in the referee’s
 Raynes Park Vale came to this   blocked to the momentary relief   narrative was about continue.   early shower in the 51st minute
                                eyes, to warrant a second yellow.
 fixture with justifiable optimism.   of the home fans only for Kai   A disallowed Vale goal on 22   and five minutes later the visitors
 Failures to launch in the FA Cup,   Allsopp to blast the resulting   minutes raised the spirits further   notched up another decent goal,   With minutes to go, Vale now
 The Velocity Cup and the FA   loose-ball into Billy Bishop’s   but, in all honesty, this was   this time from Anuar Ceesay,   down to nine men and Callum
 Trophy  had not deterred Josh   goal. So far this could have been   probably the last time the men   in the top right corner. Vale 1 –   McAllister running himself into
 Gallagher’s team from going   a familiar tale of Vale letting   in blue looked like they would   Badshot 3.  the ground such was his efforts
 stratospheric with 5 from 5 in   opponents go ahead, only for   reset the balance between these   to defend playing against the
 the Isthmian South Central,   the South Londoners to come   two teams. The Badshot front   two-man advantage, Badshot
 including some coming-from-  storming back and when, nine   three repeatedly out-paced
 behind demolitions that had   minutes later, an excellent Harry   Vale’s midfield and defence and
 fans clamouring for more. Last   Cawdron save saw the ball go   although both teams went in
 season’s spectacular display saw   behind for a corner that was duly  at half-time level it was visiting
 Vale turn over almost all of their   converted by Jerry Nnamani with  fans who had most reason to be
 CCL opponents in their march   a bullet header to put Raynes   optimistic.
 to the title. But ‘almost’ wasn’t all.   Park level it all seemed as if this
 Of the CCL clubs that Raynes
 Park couldn’t break down were
 the team that they beat into 2nd
 place last season and the team
 that they faced at Grand Drive on
 this mild Saturday afternoon.
 Spirits were high in the stands
 where there was a belief that RPV
 would be able to end the bad run
 against this bogey team. It was a
 belief that was short-lived.
 In the ninth minute a shot from
 Badshot’s Lamin Ceesay was




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