Gregg Covers Sport

Sevenoaks PFC were back in action last weekend as the 2023/24 PTC Therapeutics Premiership season surpassed the halfway mark. After a disappointing start to the season, the Oaks were looking to secure their first wins of the season to pull themselves out of the relegation zone. Here’s how they got on.

Game 1: Nottinghamshire PFC 0-0 Sevenoaks PFC

The opening game of the weekend saw the Oaks take on Nottinghamshire, a side who started the game just two points above them. The opening five minutes saw an early flurry of free-kicks and chances for us go to waste before the game evened out, becoming the tight affair matchups between these two sides usually are. A really good save from Kyle Alexander thwarted Sam Langley’s deflected effort at the near post nine minutes in, keeping the game scoreless. The majority of the rest of the game saw the ball spend most of the time in the middle of the pitch, neither side carving out clear goal-scoring opportunities.

With roughly 10 minutes to go in the second half, Oaks manager Adam McEvoy made a tactical change, moving myself into the centre and James Mason into the goal. While the switch didn’t affect the score-line in this game, the encouraging signs it had shown offered hope heading into the rest of the weekend’s games.

Game 2: Villa Rockets 2-0 Sevenoaks PFC

Those encouraging signs led to McEvoy starting the same four against Villa that had finished the first game of the day. As any team facing off against the Rockets would expect, the game was an incredibly tight, tense affair, with the Birmingham based-side shading possession but not really threatening the defensive partnership of myself and Mason on many occasions. And while we always looked a threat on the counter attack, the clinical finishing we had been missing up until that point of the season still continued to elude us.

The Oaks looked to be heading for the second consecutive 0-0 draw, and would’ve been good value for another point, but in the 35th minute Villa broke the deadlock, helped in large part by two mistakes from myself. Firstly, I misplaced an easy pass straight into the path of Daniel Kay, with the ball rebounding over to the left-hand touch line, halfway up the court. Both myself and Kay caught up with the ball, and I saw an opportunity to flick a pass to Myles Miller in the centre, however a combination of Kay reading the play and my pass not having the required pace lead to Kay intercepting my attempted pass and firing a brilliant first time ball to Daniel Ball on the opposite wing, who tucked his shot in behind Mason who had pushed up to offer me a pass option.

Conceding late is always a bitter pill to swallow, especially when you make the mistake that leads to the goal, as you can’t help feeling like you’ve let your teammates down. As we desperately searched for an equaliser, Villa grabbed a second to seal the victory in the 41st minute when Mason saw his attempted pass on the edge of our own box blocked by Amir Ali and rebounding into the back our goal.

Another more encouraging and promising performance from the squad, but once again it was individual mistakes costing us valuable points.

Game 3: Teesside PFC 1-0 Sevenoaks PFC

Sunday morning started off with a game against Teesside PFC, a side who had entered the weekend in second place, only one point off league leaders Aspire, but after two uncharacteristically poor performances the day before offered more hope to the Oaks. It was a game that followed the same pattern as the Villa Rockets game the day prior, with our opponents shading the possession battle, but rarely troubling myself and Mason at the back. Again we looked a threat on the counter-attack, but just couldn’t score the goal our play across the weekend so far had deserved.

The crucial moment in this game came as time expired in the first half, when goalkeeper James Mason slightly misplaced his goal kick, hitting it straight at Teesside’s talisman Tyler Reeve who simply front-bumpered the ball back past Mason and into the back of our goal.

In the second half, we came out with intent in the opening first five minutes playing some good attacking football, but the game soon swung back in Teesside’s favour, making us soak up pressure and lose valuable minutes. With 10 minutes left on the clock in the second half, McEvoy made his second tactical switch of the weekend, moving me out wide and reintroducing captain Kyle Alexander back into the central role. This switch injected a fresh impetus into the squad, with some good phases of play being put together, but has had plagued them all season, no clinical finish to complete the moves. One last chance, in additional time at the end of the game, fell the way of winger Harry Bestwick, but his shot was hit straight at Alistair Haigh in the Teesside goal, and that was that.

Another good performance, but another defeat.

Game 4: Sevenoaks PFC 2-0 Hull & East Yorkshire PFC

The last game of the weekend saw the Oaks take on a Hull & East Yorkshire side who sat bottom of the PTC Premiership table but who had been buoyed after grabbing their first ever Premiership goals, and more importantly their first ever Premiership win, across their other three games of the weekend up to that point. At the start of the game, we sat just one point above our opponents, so we knew how important this game was to our season.

We started the game as we had finished the Teesside fixture, with Mason in goal, Alexander in the central role, and myself and Bestwick on the wings. Straight from the first minute, we played on the front foot, encouraged by how we had played across the weekend and determined to get our first three points of the season. The first goal-scoring opportunity fell to Bestwick within three minutes, after I picked him out all alone at the back post with a powerful and quickly taken kick-in, but his effort could only find Rothery in the middle of the Hull goal, scrambling to get across to the far post. Bestwick would again be denied by a scrambling Rothery just 60 seconds later as I again picked him out at the far post, and you’d have been forgiven for beginning think it just wasn’t going to be our weekend.

With 10 minutes gone, we finally got our reward for our dominant start. After my initial shot had been saved by Rothery, we recycled possession well, Bestwick passing to Alexander on the edge of the box, who in turn played a ball just in behind me on the right hand side. I swung all the way around and fired the ball towards Bestwick at the far post who had the simplest of front bumper finishes to put us 1-0 ahead, A collective sigh of relief was let out by everyone connected with the club, we had finally finished off a good passing move! You may think I am making a lot of this moment, but when consider the fact that before this, we had only managed three goals in our 12 previous games (one of which was an own goal) it was definitely monumental.

Two and a half minutes later we doubled our advantage, and it almost a carbon copy of our opener, this time beginning with a kick-in right on the corner mark. Bestwick fizzed a ball to Alexander who was again unmarked on the edge of the box, and as a result he had all the time in the world to switch the ball to me, in all sorts of space on the right-hand side, and I again fired a ball back across the goal to the far post where Bestwick got his second front-bumper finish of the game, sparking jubilant scenes.

In the second-half the game became much tighter and tough, as our levels dropped off and Hull, to their credit, fought back, with star man Kole Simpson (whose efforts across the weekend saw him deservedly voted the Unsung Hero of the weekend) trying his best to get his side back in the game. Ultimately we saw the game out to claim a valuable first three points of the season, finally getting that first notch in the win column.

That win saw us finish the weekend in 9th position with 8 points, level with Manchester United in 10th but above them courtesy of our superior goal difference. More importantly we are now three points clear of the automatic relegation places, with a new found optimism and enthusiasm that we can push on from this weekend to hopefully have a strong end to the season.

All that remains to be said is, as always,,,

COME ON YOU OAKS!