Southern League Division One Central

Beaconsfield Town 1 - 2 Flackwell Heath

RAM of the Match: Matty Harriot

Flackwell Heath took the local bragging rights, in a tightly fought Boxing Day encounter at Holloways Park.

A bumper crowd of 394 turned up to Holloways Park for the Boxing Day clash between Beaconsfield Town & Flackwell Heath. Flackwell Heath started on the front foot, seeing a lot of the ball and going close early on. It was only 4 minutes into the match when Flackwell Heath took the lead with a good header scored by Callum Mapley, after an excellent cross.

Beaconsfield had a chance to level, with Ben Tricker going close to equalising as he headed wide from a corner. The first half largely belonged to Flackwell Heath, as the created chances and dominated in midfield. Beaconsfield’s Ben Tricker made an excellent block to prevent the scoreline being doubled as half time approached. Akiel Raffie went close for Beaconsfield with a well taken free kick, but the Flackwell Heath took the 1-0 lead into the interval.

Beaconsfield looked a far better team after the restart. Josh Marcon was inches away from levelling the scoreline when his corner almost went straight in only to be denied by a fingertip form Flackwell’s Carl Dennison in goal. The score should have been levelled when Cheyce Grant found himself one on one with the goalkeeper inside the box. Hesitation from Grant and a good save Dennison kept the score at 0-1.

Flackwell Heath extended their lead when Beaconsfield seemed to freeze in midfield, allowing the ball to be passed through the middle of the park, before being smashed home by Jack Shakespeare to make it 0-2.

Debutant Usman Lalustani had only been on the pitch a matter of minutes when he halved the deficit to make the score 1-2. Beaconsfield’s Joe Lawal did the hard work, squeezing his way through inside the box before cutting the ball back across the face of goal, the ball pushed wide only to be tapped in by Lalustani inside the 6-yard box.

A late effort from substitute Avto Akhsiashvili sailed just over the bar before Beaconsfield had a penalty appeal waved away as the game drew to a close. The late Beaconsfield pressure wasn’t quite enough as Flackwell Heath hung on to take the 2-1 win and the 3 points back down the road to Wilks Park.

Beaconsfield are back in action on Saturday 28th with a trip to Kidlington.

 

By Arran White