Despite a valiant comeback, Kingston fell short in today’s football match against Royal Holloway as they lost 4-3 in their second game of the season.
Following a 6-2 win last week, Kingston men’s 1st came out today looking like a very different team as they struggled to retain possession in the first half of the game.
The opposition immediately took advantage of Kingston’s shaky defence and worked their way into the penalty box. Keeper Aaron Atkinson was unable to recoverin time from a save and conceded a scrappy rebound goal, giving Royal Holloway an early lead.
Kingston came right back as Charlie Marshall received a beautiful through ball from Nathan Doble, leaving him one-on-one with the keeper. Marshall maintained his composure, dribbled right by the keeper and tapped it into the back of the goal for the tie.
Royal Holloway ended the half strongly as they managed to come back for another sloppy goal as Kingston failed to defend against a series of threatening attacks.
Kingston’s woes continued as Royal Holloway managed to bang in two quick goals at the beginning of the second half.
However, Kingston refused to go down without a fight. A glimmer of hope appeared for the home team as skipper Gareth Chendlik managed to step up, breaking free in the penalty area to bang in a goal, making the game 4-2.
Fresher Sam Pledger also managed to make a good run, dribbling into the penalty area and curling in a shot past the keeper and for a minute it seemed like Kingston were poised for a huge comeback.
The last few minutes of the game saw multiple shot attempts by Kingston, capped off by a wide open shot by Josh Wright in the dying minutes of the game, which unfortunately landed straight into the keepers hands.
“I think first half, we might have shown a bit of complacency coming off the back of a 6-2 win last week and we were punished for it” said Chendlik.
However, the captain was very pleased with the team’s resilience: “most people would’ve written the game off, but to show some fight and desire of our team we came back and got so close to levelling it off.”
The team is set to play Buckinghamshire New University next week at Tolworth sports ground.
Konstantinos Patas