2/4/2008

Sport

Football - Casuals surrender second two-goal lead

Walton Casuals                2
Croydon Athletic             2

WALTON Casuals surrendered a two-goal lead for the second time inside a week as they drew with Croydon Athletic at Franklyn Road on Saturday.

A game that burst into life in the second half ended with two goals for the visitors in the last five minutes to claim a share of the spoils.

After an uneventful first half, Croydon went close to opening the scoring in the 55th minute when Luke Adams’ header hit the bar from a free kick on the right.

The home side responded almost immediately with an attack that led to the game’s opening goal.

Outpacing the Athletic defence, Rico Morris ran on to Craig Bradshaw’s long clearance and shot past goalkeeper Michael Lidbury to give Casuals a 1-0 lead.

The home side doubled the lead on the hour when Morris turned provider for Chris Kiganda to hit a powerful shot on the turn into the top left corner of the Croydon net.

However, despite trailing by two goals, the visitors always posed a threat to the Casuals goal and pulled one back when Moses Ademola found a similarly classy finish to beat Bradshaw with a powerful drive in the 85th minute.

Buoyed by the goal, Croydon continued to attack and earned themselves a share of the spoils three minutes later when substitute Greg Andrews did well on the stretch at the far post to direct a cross into Casuals’ net.

First printed in: News & Mail Series