9:06am Tuesday 9th February 2010
By Rob Meech
Chickerell UTD 4 HAMWORTHY UTD RES 1 BRENDON King admitted his title-chasing Chickerell United side were not at the races on Saturday – despite their 4-1 victory over Hamworthy United Reserves.
The second-placed Chickens extended their Dorset Premier League winning streak to nine and kept within sight of table-topping Hamworthy Recreation.
Goals from the quartet of Andy Hall, Ross Doidge, Nick Etherington and Adam Linaker sealed maximum points at Cranford Avenue.
But, peculiarly, Chickerell boss King sounded subdued in his frank post-match interview and found it difficult to extract many positives from his troops’ performance.
Reflecting on the win, he told the Echo: “We made hard work of it and weren’t at the races. It was scrappy and we got dragged down to their level a bit.
“Our passing wasn’t very good, nor our decision-making. We didn’t get going at all but we still did enough to win the game.
“It was a pretty poor display but we got the points and sometimes that’s all that matters. I suppose you can’t go out and play great football every week.
“We’ll have to be better than that when we play them away on Wednesday because they’ll have a few first-teamers in their side. Hopefully we can step up to the plate.”
Hamworthy entered the game managerless following the resignation of Kevin Jackson, who had stepped down after their humiliating 6-1 defeat to Cranborne.
And the hosts should have landed an early blow after Warren White had been fouled in the area, but Chris Reader shanked the resultant spot-kick and the chance was gone.
It took 40 minutes until Chickerell finally opened their account, Hall slotting home a 20-yard free-kick past the despairing dive of the visiting keeper.
But the lowly Hammers bagged a shock leveller almost immediately when an innocuous downfield punt arced straight over keeper Ashley Weeks and into the net.
White, Hall and Etherington all spurned opportunities to restore the hosts’ advantage before Doidge converted a penalty on 65 minutes after a Hamworthy defender had been penalised for handball.
Etherington settled the nerves among uneasy home supporters shortly afterwards, cleverly placing a left-footed shot into the bottom corner.
And substitute Linaker successfully dispatched another spot-kick – Chickerell’s second from three attempts – with not long to go to rubberstamp a workmanlike victory.
Chickens: Weeks, Oliver, Anstey, Graham (Daniels, 70), Reader, Evans (Doidge, 60), Litherland, Roper (Litherland 60), Hall, Etherington, White.
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