Henley Athl vs Achilles

A good-sized midweek crowd of 74 saw a display of exciting football from a Henley side, who despite having 3 goals disallowed, still ran out comfortable 6-0 winners over Achilles FC.

After an early scare with home keeper Holland nearly deceived by a bobble, Henley soon took control with Bruce having a goal chalked off for a tight offside decision. The Achilles keeper did well to grab the ball on 15 minutes, to recover after spilling a Bruce freekick. On 20 minutes what would have been goal of the season, cannoned off the bar and into the safety of the Achilles keeper’s hands, after Storey strolled forward from defence, flicked the ball up and over a defender and smashed a volley goalward from fully 30 yards. Tejano fired the ball home shortly after, but as he struck it the whistle blew for a suspected head injury and again the goal was disallowed. The deadlock was finally broken on 30 minutes, a neat ball throw from Tejano finding Bruce, who made no mistake slotting home from 8 yards for 1-0.

The 2^nd half started with Henley pouring forward, only to see a 3^rdgoal disallowed as Watling stretched to apply the final finish to Liam Ablitt’s curling shot and was very narrowly judged to be offside. The floodgates opened after 65 minutes as Gav Van Oene whipped in an inch perfect curling freekick from 25 yards to make it 2-0 and to score Henley’s 100^th goal in all competitions, so far this season.  Smythe was rightly booked for pulling back an Achilles player on the break, but despite vociferous protests from the noisy visitor’s bench, Storey was covering and it was never likely to be a red card.

On 75 minutes it was Gav Van Oene again, a slick passing move down the left, culminated with George Ablitt skipping around the keeper before laying the ball off to Van Oene who guided the ball into the empty net for 3-0. On the 83^rd minute George Ablitt made it 4-0 with a terrific individual effort, cutting in from the left and firing a 20 yard effort into the top corner.

The goals were flowing now and after 87 minutes Bruce added his 2^nd, perfectly timing his run to meet Thrower’s clever ball and lifting it over the keeper for 5-0. There was still time for one more though and in the last minute a lungbusting sprint down the line from Shore, saw him produce a low driven cross, met, in his stride by George Ablitt, who smashed home from 6 yards for a final score of 6-0.

One of our better displays of the season, with some fine, flowing football, MOTM went to David Shore who simply impressed with everything he did. Achilles, sadly, are but a shadow of the historically great team we all knew, but they did show plenty of fight and their management and supporters will be hoping they can do enough to avoid relegation in their remaining games.