Poole Borough Football Club
Season 2003/04

THE SEASON

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Tony White - hard to pick anyone out in a seperp defensive display but Tony was a clossus in the centre of the pitch.

Borough Scorers: James Edwards 5, Kieron Campbell 35
Borough Man of the Match: Tony White

To continue a tradition with local derbies, Borough overturned the formbook to inflict Hamworthy United’s first defeat of the season following seven straight wins in a game witnessed by a record crowd of 240 at Turlin Moor, which was also the Hornets first victory in five starts.

Following three games without a goal, Borough made the best possible start when after only five minutes James Edwards latched onto a loose ball on the edge of the area and hit a perfect strike which Hammers keeper Hawkins got a hand to but couldn’t keep out.

The Hammers, however were level seven minutes later with a soft goal, when a tight clearance from Adam Nash was charged down by Jamie Holland and the ball ran into the path of Darren Orchard to dispatch.

The game continued with opportunities both ends Holland just failing to get his head to a driven cross, while for Borough Kireon Campell broke through on the right and his low shot alluded Hawkins but went agonisingly wide of the far post. Fittingly, however it was former Hammer Campbell put Borough back in the lead after 35 minutes leaving the visitors defence behind as he ran through to collect a superb pass from Edwards before coolly taking the ball past Hawkins and slotting home.

Hamworthy came straight back and forced a superb save from Nash and although the ball was converted following the resulting goalmouth scramble, it was disallowed for offside. Derrant Blenman, however nearly put Borough further ahead just before the break, as he was fed down the left by another great pass from Edwards, but Hawkins came out to make an excellent block to deny the resulting shot.

Half Time 2-1

As expected the Hammers came straight out on the offensive following the break and within two minutes Darren Orchard hit the crossbar with a shot following a quickly taken free kick and a minute later Nash could only parry a cross but did well to collect the ball under pressure at the second attempt.

On 54 minutes Nash again came to Borough’s rescue, saving with his feet from Holland, but from that point onwards Borough’s defence were superb in stifling the Hammers approach play with a combination of tenacious tackling and plain weight of numbers behind the ball.

This approach blunted the increasingly desperate Hamworthy forwards and as the game continued Borough were able to create late chances for Jamie Wilson who went narrowly wide and Gary Fooks with a shot that was scrambled past the post by Hawkins. With the referee playing six minutes of injury time, Hamworthy still have time to force a couple of corners but the Borough defence continued to hold firm to hold on for a fully deserve their first victory against their near neighbours.

Borough: Adam Nash, Dan Herrington, Tony White, Shaun Clarke, Martin White, Stuart Merrell (Jamie Wilson 77), James Edwards, Alex Gunn, Darrent Blenman, Kieron Campbell (Gary Fooks 72), Steve Russell (Matt Norris 90).

Managers' Comments ..................

Alex Pike said: "I am very disappointed. I could give a thousand excuses but in the end we were not good enough. Peter Morrell (Borough's manager) called our lads "big time Charlies" while trying to encourage his side and to be honest we were on the day.

"We hit the crossbar, had a goal disallowed and had two penalty appeals turned down but we cannot put the blame on that. Our players need to take a good long look at themselves. I have had a few text messages from a few of them apologising for the result which is nice but it does not give me the three points."

Pete Morrell said: "Any result is good for us at the moment no matter who we are playing. They thought after the game that they were unlucky but I thought we made the better chances throughout. We restricted them to long range shots and we hit them on the break. They have not got much pace at the back and that enabled us to get behind them a few times. It was a good win but as I said to the lads there is no use in raising our game against the big sides if we then go and lose to the lower teams."