Coddenham Athletic 4 vs 5 Shotley

Coddenham welcomed Shotley to a cold and muddy School Road on Saturday afternoon.

We had Charlie Hunt back between the sticks, Estavao Lopez returned into the back 3 & Will Gibson started in the holding role, whilst Ali Gravett Curl returned from uni to slot in at LWB.

Alex Monteiro started up top in absence of Kyle Irvine.

Hunt, Skinner, Guite, Pearce, Lopez, A.Gravett-Curl, Gibson, P.Gravett-Curl, Saunderson-Copping, Holland & Monteiro.

Subs: De Melo, Whitefield & R.Mitchell.

Coddenham started the game attacking the church end, and were mostly soaking up pressure from the Shotley front line.

Shotley took the lead when K.Mandley slotted the ball home from the spot after Lopez had fouled him.

After the visitors taking the lead, the hosts came back into the game, and we seemed to get alot of joy down our right hand side through Max Skinner.

Eventually a Saunderson-Copping ball split the defence to find Max Skinner who sent the ball across the 6 yards box for Monteiro to tap in.

1-1.

The Cod Army grew in confidence after this and were making some good openings.

On 35 minutes Gibson made a cheeky chip over the Shotley defence, and Holland weaved away from Garnham to slot past Gladwell in the Shotley goal.

2-1.

Just before half time, Gibson was at it again splitting the defence and Holland raced away to make it 3 before half time.

3-1.

HT: 3-1The 2nd half was a different story, we knew Shotley would come out firing needing to win to keep their hopes alive of the Div 2 title.

Coddenham kept to there plan and kept battling away to try and force a 4th.

But Shotley managed to find a goal on 70 minutes when it was bundled over the line 3-2.

Shotley equalised on on 80 minutes when Hunt seemed to have been fouled, but thats not the point it was in and it was 3-3.

On 85 minutes the Cod Army retook the lead, and might well have thought we'd won the game, when De Melo found Saunderson-Copping who slotted it into the bottom corner from 20 yards.

4-3.

30 seconds later Shotley equalised through J.Mandley when the ball for him and he fired home.

4-4.

Deep into injury time, Shotley broke away, and K.Mandley put a ball on a plate for Adam Frost to bundle the ball home to take all 3pts.

Was a cracking game for the neutral, but it was a huge kick in the teeth for the Cod Army.

Surprisingly no bookings in this fixture that has a reputation of being a bit of banker for the FA.