Felixstowe & Walton United FC

 FELIXSTOWE & WALTON UTD  3 - 2  AFC SUDBURY

 Super Seasiders secure dramatic late win

Felixstowe & Walton United registered their first league win of the season in dramatic fashion, an injury time winner from Josh Kerridge securing an excellent 3-2 victory over AFC Sudbury. Ollie Canfer and Leon Ottley-Gooch had twice brought the Seasiders level after the visitors early flourish.

The Seasiders made two changes to the side that had beaten Gt Wakering in the FA Trophy on Saturday, Kyle Jopling slotting into defence in place of the suspended Stuart Ainsley and Tyger Smalls coming in for Lamell Howell.

Sudbury were quick to stamp their authority on the game, their passing and style of play a real handful to deal with. They could have been ahead after just 5 minutes, Joe Whight thumping the crossbar with his smartly taken free kick. A minute later and the Yellows were in front, Shane Temple bursting clear and coolly slotting the ball under Callum Robinson. Felixstowe were convinced Temple was offside but their protests fell on deaf ears. It was nearly 2-0 on 11 minutes when again the crossbar came to the rescue, the ball bouncing down just the right side of the goal line for the Seasiders defence to clear. Felixstowe gradually began to grow into the game and equalised on 28 minutes, Ollie Canfer scoring his third goal in three days, Henry Barley beating three men on the right before cutting into the box and firing a shot that was going wide until Canfers glancing header saw the ball creep inside the far post. Sudbury were unlucky not to retake the lead on 33 minutes when another Joe Whight free kick was beaten away by Robinson, but from the resultant corner kick, it was 2-1 with Sean Marks getting the touch to put the away side ahead. Shortly before half time Luca Collins in the Sudbury goal was perhaps fortunate to not see a red card after racing out of his box to upend Ollie Canfer, a yellow was deemed sufficient by the referee and the free kick came to nothing.

Felixstowe started the second half playing some excellent football and limiting Sudbury to rare forays forward; on 65 minutes a free kick on the right touchline from Callum Bennett fell to Leon Ottley-Gooch to lash the ball home through a crowd of players to level the scores again. It was all Felixstowe now and Armani Schaar was creating problems for the visitors defence with his pace and power after replacing Ollie Canfer who had suffered a dead leg in that first half challenge by the goalkeeper. With two minutes of the four added on at the end of the game remaining, it was Captain Josh Kerridge who popped up with a great header to send the home supporters into raptures, a minute later and the points were almost in the bag as Armani Schaar raced clear of the Sudbury defence, beat the keeper with his low shot but could only watch on as it just went wide of the post. A couple of free kicks caused a nervy finish to the match but Felixstowe held out well to grab a fine win.

Manager Stuart Boardley spoke after the game. “We are really pleased with the win, but more pleased with the performance, of course its lovely to get a last minute winner, I can’t dent that but we were saying on the bench when it was 2-2, whatever happens in the game, be it a loss, a win or a draw, we were really pleased with the performance, particularly the second half when I thought we were excellent. Sudbury have bright young footballers and they are a great footballing side, Danny and Mark have got them well drilled and they started a lot quicker than us. They looked very dangerous so we made a couple of tweaks defensively to try and stop that, which I think worked in the first half albeit that didn’t really allow us to get on the ball in an attacking sense as much as we would have liked. We changed it again at half time and I though the second half we really dominated and all credit to the lads, they were fantastic.” He went on to say, “There was four or five of them that were outstanding tonight, our main aim tonight was to stay unbeaten, and create a solid base from the start that will allow our attacking players such as Jordy Matthews, Ollie Canfer and Miles Powell to be able to express themselves and create chances and I think that’s what we did.”

Match report by Stuart Daynes

Photos by David Francis

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