Furngate vets 1 vs 3 Horsham Crusaders Veterans

? MATCH REPORT Furngate Vets 1–3 Horsham Crusaders One week to go until the season starts… and once again, we were weak on numbers. ?? But despite the result, there were plenty of positives to take from this one. The first half was, quite honestly, some of the best football I have seen us play during pre-season. Pass after pass, shot after shot — we were absolutely dominating. Sam Tester hit the post and the bar, Lee Henderson also hit the crossbar and somehow we went into half-time without scoring. We could genuinely have been 5–0 up. Pistol in goal barely had to touch the ball. In the middle of the park, Lee Henderson and Sam Tester were controlling everything, linking up brilliantly and showing exactly what kind of football this team is capable of playing. Muzza was also having a massive impact, but unfortunately had to go off at half-time — a huge blow for us. That meant we had to change what was working. HALF-TIME How can you be critical of what we'd just watched? The message was simple: don't start the second half slowly. Keep doing what we're doing. Keep passing. Keep creating. Keep applying pressure. Unfortunately… that's exactly what we didn't do. We started slowly and Horsham took advantage, getting themselves ahead. Pistol probably could have done better with the goal, and we couldn't believe we were suddenly 1–0 down in such a one-sided game. But we didn't let our heads drop. We fought back and got the goal our performance deserved. Ben Allison with a lovely finish, set up brilliantly by Aaron Agyeman. 1–1. ? As the game went on, tired legs started to show. Horsham began getting more of the ball and eventually won a free kick. The ball was crossed into the box and headed home. 2–1. At this point you're thinking… what is going on?! With around 20 minutes left, Jono was thrown up top, dreaming of his equaliser moment… unfortunately, the moment never came! ?? Then came the killer. Dicky took a throw back to Pistol, who heard the shout from Fish. Pistol played it to Fish, who unfortunately put the ball straight into the path of their striker. 3–1. Game over. We had more shots. We had more chances. We hit the woodwork three times. Their goalkeeper pulled off some fantastic saves. It just wasn't our day. ?? KEY MOMENTS ?? Pistol's legendary step-over ? Ben Allison's goal, assisted by Aaron Agyeman ? Man of the Match — Lee Henderson ?? Fish beating three players and curling an effort just past the keeper and inches wide of the post ?? Three times hitting the woodwork ?? Their goalkeeper making some outstanding saves THE VERDICT The scoreline doesn't really tell the full story. The first half was brilliant. The second half was still very good. Our biggest problems were mistakes, fitness and finishing — things that can absolutely be improved. The lads were gutted after the final whistle. A lot of the team took the result really hard. But honestly, that's a good thing. It shows we care. It shows we're hungry. It shows we know we're better than the result we got today. We've got one week until the season starts, and we've got another massive game on Sunday against Crawley Athletic. Time to learn from this one. Time to get numbers up. Time to sharpen up. And most importantly… ?? TIME TO GO AND SMASH CRAWLEY ATHLETIC ON SUNDAY. ?? Furngate Vets — together, positive, hungry and ready. ???