Cards cruise into Surrey final

Woking 7 Egham Town 1
Surrey Senior Cup semi-final
26th March 2014
 
Egham Town sit in mid-table of the Calor League (Southern League) Division One Central. As such, they would have come into this game as very much the underdogs against opponents who, nine days earlier, had majestically seen off the runaway leaders of the Skrill Premier on their own ground in front of the TV cameras. To compound the visitors' problems Woking, in preparation for a tough fixture at home to Wrexham this coming weekend, elected to field virtually their strongest side as they had seen no competitive football since their heroics at Kenilworth Road.

The pitch was wet after heavy afternoon rain and there was a small amount of water visible on the playing surface. Unsurprisingly, the home side was soon into its stride and Kevin Betsy in particular was quick to show the gulf in class between the two sides. The first goal duly arrived in the thirteenth minute when Giuseppe Sole (pictured) fired home from close range.

The visitors were looking a little overwhelmed in the early stages but after twenty minutes they finally put a meaningful move together but this was snuffed out by captain Mark Ricketts.

Back came the Cards, who stamped their authority on the game with two further goals, from Scott Rendell and Betsy to make the tie virtually safe by the interval.

Half-time: Woking 3 Egham Town 0

It had been an excellent effort for the visitors to reach this stage of the competition so no doubt damage limitation was as much as they could expect as they lined up for the second half. However, within ten minutes of the restart they found themselves a further two goals behind as first Sole, and then Rendell, added to Woking's tally. Sole then completed his hat-trick in the seventy-sixth minute when substitute Reece Beckles unselfishly played him in. Another replacement, Adam Brice, completed the scoring for the home team with eight minutes remaining.

To their credit, Egham battled away gamely and were rewarded with a late goal in stoppage time which was greeted by the ironic and amusing chant of 'easy, easy' from the small band of away supporters.

A far harder task awaits the Cards this coming weekend against Wrexham as they look to push further up the Skrill Premier table but this game provided some useful match practice for the team. Why not come on down to Kingfield on Saturday to see our local heroes take on the team who not too many years ago were dumping Arsenal out of the FA Cup!

Woking: Aaron Howe, Adam Newton, John Nutter, Mark Ricketts (Joe McNerney 46), Brett Johnson, Joey Jones (Reece Beckles 18), Kevin Betsy, Keiran Murtagh, Scott Rendell,(Adam Brice 65), Giuseppe Sole, John Goddard.

Unused subs: Niall Wright, George Frith
 
My Man of the Match: Giuseppe Sole
       
Attendance: 124