Crawley Down Gatwick 3 -0 Langney Wanderers

Anvils gained revenge from the earlier reversal at Shinewater Lane back in October, but certainly did it the hard way after scoring early on they left it until the 75th minute to seal the match despite their dominance with a number of missed chances thro out the game keeping Langney always in with a chance.

The visitors started the quicker of the two with Paul Rogers firing over, and a Wayne Wilkinson charge being halted by the tigerish Blair Cooney, all this inside the first 5 minutes, after this early flurry the Anvils then started to get into their stride with first Luke Trotter testing keeper Graham Leach, then just after the same player with an open goal beckoning fired over, fellow flankman Dave Houlders out right then lobbed a shot that settled on the top netting, he finally got his sights sorted when taking on a Trotter pass in his stride then blasting past Leach to the open the Anvils score. 1- 0 Anvils.

From then on it was a tale of missed chances as openings appeared time and time again only to be squandered by a poor final ball or shot, allied to desperate defensive work by the Wands as the Anvils turned the screw, typical of this came on 25 when from a Hass Shurmahi corner the ball found Trotter whose header was pawed away by Leach only as far as Leslie whose header was returned to the keeper, this was just one incident of many, as Leslie again shot wide, and another Shurmahi corner found James Day whose header crashed against the bar and away, and on 35 a Lee Thomas header was stopped by Leach with the ball running loose to Leslie whose shot was pawed over again by the keeper. The visitors were hardly having a look in against all this mayhem, tho Rogers with a freekick and Weatherby shooting straight at keeper Andy Greaves helped to breakup what was going on down the other end.

HT 1-0 Anvils.

With the wind now at their backs one awaited the reply from the Wands, but in truth it never happened, as the Anvils locked their defensive gates and continued to pour forward in numbers with another Shurmahi corner causing another melee in the box before hooked away. But tho under the cosh the Wands refused to lie down, with Sam Westons freekick finding Oleg Alexandrov who in turn fired wide.
Come 70 and manager Paul Cooper rang the changes with Leslie being replaced by leading scorer Ben Brooker, and within 5 mins Brooker eased Anvil tensions when tucking home a Houlders cross, 2-0 Anvils, and yet again just like buses another turned up a minute later when from a Thomas charge the ball found Trotter who in turn set up Sam Cane to get his customary goal and give the Anvils more breathing space and a bigger cushion.
3-0 Anvils.
With a quarter hour to go further changes on the Anvil bench came with James Lovett on for Shurmahi and Myles Pitt on for Trotter being given the freedom to stretch their legs as the Anvils closed the game down, now satisfied with the points and for a change a 'clean sheet' to boot.

FT 3-0 Anvils.

Manager Paul Cooper said after the game “I was pleased with what a professional and patient performance it was from us today. First half we had the weather conditions in our favour and knew we had to take advantage. Dave Houlders finished off a lovely move in the first ten mins, but we weren’t able to add to it despite creating a lot of chances. The impressive part was the second half when we expected Langney to use the wind to there advantage and hit the danger man Wayne Wilkinson to try and nick a goal – but we never gave them a chance and restricted them to probably 1 maybe 2 shots on goal all game. Ben Brooker wasn’t fully fit after being injured last Saturday , but I named him on the bench in case we needed a goal. At 1-0 I just felt he could perhaps unlock that door and put us out of sight which he did. He took his goal well and you could see the oppositions body language go after this.