Tooting and Mitcham went into this one as league leaders and on a fiercely hot streak: a perfect record in November of eight wins on the spin with a dizzying total of 34 goals scored in that awesome octet of results. And they certainly started like a side on fire – laying siege to the home goal with some excellent mazy runs down both flanks by the hyperactive Taurean Roberts and some excellent fast flowing inter-plays which threatened to cut the Borough defence apart.
The first 15 minutes were a torrid time for the beleaguered hosts as the well-named Terrors mounted wave after wave of attack. Tooting’s big target man Michael Dixon showed strength and an admirable touch all game – as his side’s stand-out performer – and when nipping in on the right to blast goal ward after just a couple of minutes had elapsed on the clock, it took all of the Greenwich custodian Craig Holloway’s agility to get a strong right hand to it.
Roberts was wrecking havoc down the left in the main and with an eye for goal himself (sometimes spurning the chance to find better placed team mates in truth) he tested Holloway himself with a drive which looked goal bound until the keeper sprung to tip the ball over.
24 goals this season (including exactly half that number in a prolific November) shows how dangerous Dixon’s strike partner Billy Dunne has proven to be this campaign and he was next to test Holloway with a 25 yarder: the keeper stopping Dunne securing what would have been a notable pre-turn f the year quarter century of goals.
However, the initial storm weathered there was a portent of the better things to come in this game for Greenwich in the 17th. minute when a speedy and efficient interchange of passes between Peter Sweeney and Rob Denness ended with a snap shot from the left-footed midfielder. An up to now unemployed Matte Pierson between the sticks for United, misjudged the flight of the shot completely, letting it go and it would have been a jolt to his confidence as well as a moment of some relief when the enormous thud of ball against foot of post reverberated around the ground and the ball zipped off the woodwork to safety.
Stung by nearly going behind, the visitors stormed forward in waves again. There was panic in the Borough defence and a desperate clearance from recent signing from Chatham Town, Liam Hickey went perilously close to going into his own goal. The resultant corner was an unusual daisy cutter (a mis-cue or a training ground manoeuvre it wasn’t clear) but all it lead to was another corner and this time a far more traditional cross was sent in by Jordan Wilson; and with big men aplenty in the box it was the centre half Sol Patterson-Bohner who rose largely unchallenged to head home from the six yard line.
A couple of minutes later it was nearly two – with Dixon’s fierce shot being only parried by Holloway into the path of Roberts but he showed more prolificacy blasting high over the bar.
Then on the half hour mark there were long and loud calls for a penalty by the entire Tooting front line when Danny Young blocked the ball on the near post and it ricocheted up against his lower arm.
The spurning of chances by the league leaders and the luck seemingly not going their way seemed though to begin to chip away at their confidence going forward and a loss of penetrative ideas in the vital areas was, in truth, to bedevil them for the rest of the game. Also the homesters developed a steel which seemed fermented by a rather unseemly bit of pushing and shoving in the centre circle – the edge this gave to all future tackles, especially in a congested midfield, seemed to galvanise the hosts who really gave very little else away.
And in stoppage time they got the ultimate reward for how they had began to turn around the game with an equaliser.
A corner on the left needed to be taken quickly (as the 45 minutes were up and actually no board had been shown suggesting any defined stoppage time) and needed to be delivered well. It ticked both boxes and indeed was such a peach of a cross from the corner taker Mohamed Eisa, that a number of Greenwich heads rose to attack the ball. Lewwis Spence it was who headed what seemed goal-bound and both Rob Denness and Liam MacDevitt nodded toward the ball to make sure. By his celebration it seemed Denness was claiming the touch but later the goal-scorer was amended to give it to the Greenwich no. 7. No matter for Denness though – his brace in the second half was to more than compensate for missing out on the credit for this one!
A goal right on half time is, as the well-worn cliché has it, a vital time to score and that really did prove to be case – because in the second half the visitors never regained any of the fluency or attacking verve they’d demonstrated through much of the first stanza.
MacDevitt was almost a clear goal scorer this time when put through one and one with the keeper but Pierson was alert to the danger; and then the fast running Eisa shot over wastefully from very close in.
It was perhaps inevitable that the second half deadlock was going to be needed to be broken by a decision going one side’s way and when Sweeney’s cross from the left arrived at speed into the area, it bounced sharply up at Quincy Rowe and the central defender seemed instinctively to lower this arm in the direction of the ball’s flight – it was a penalty. Denness stepped up coolly to dispatch the spot kick and with twenty minutes to go suddenly the home side had the lead.
It was not to be an advantage they held for too long though. The main characteristic of Greenwich’s second half display in particular had been the side’s swarming defence – surrounding the Tooting offensive players at all opportunities (with some tackles overstepping the mark thus seeing Bradley Pritchard and Sweeney getting their names in Mr Ellis’ black book); but for once the ever willing Jordan Wilson got clear of his marker and the backup couldn’t stop the Tooting no 7 as he weaved his way all to the by-line – the ball in was wickedly delivered and there was Dixon to score his tenth goal in eight games.
It was now all about who wanted it more and with Borough languishing eight points behind Tooting at the start of play it was clear that Gary Alexander’s side really coveted the three points more – introducing the veteran striker Charlie MacDonald as the clock ticked towards the 88th. minute.
It didn’t give the 35-year-old long to make an impact but just as the board was raised to show a minimum of three minutes stoppage time, MacDonald found himself out on the left of the United penalty area and he was somehow able to by-pass the defence with a through ball, swept home to the delirium of the Greenwich faithful by Denness with a low right-footed shot.
Christmas certainly had come early for the home side with this victory – one which really did put the Grin in Greenwich!
Teams:
Greenwich Borough
Craig Holloway, Nathan Paul (George Pilbeam 62), Peter Sweeney, Liam Hickey, Liam MacDevitt (Jake Britnell 78), Rob Denness, Mohamed Eisa (Charlie MacDonald 88), Danny Young, Lewwis Spence, Bradley Pritchard Lewis Clark
Unused subs: Michael Power, Ryan-Khayne Makhosin
Tooting & Mitcham United
Matte Pierson, Callum Wilson, Peter Wedgeworth (Claudio Hoban 90), Eddie Dines, Sol Patterson-Bohner, Quincy Rowe, Jordan Wilson, Chace O’Neill, Michael Dixon, Billy Dunn, Taurean Roberts (Danny Bassett 80).
Unused subs: Ashley Robinson, Ollie Bennett, Adriano Moraes
Goals:
Greenwich Borough 3 (MacDevitt 45+1, Denness 70 (pen.), 90+1
Tooting & Mitcham 2 (Patterson-Bohner 22, Dixon 79)
Officials:
Referee: Zack Ellis; Assistants: James Amadori & John Nazari
Attendance: 201