9/4/2008

Sport

Football - Cobham relegation fears grow

Raynes Park Vale               4
Cobham                                1

COBHAM’S relegation woes deepened on Saturday when they lost 4-1 at fellow strugglers Raynes Park Vale.

The defeat sees second-from-bottom Raynes Park close to within one point of Cobham, with two games in hand over the Elmbridge side.

The encounter had started well for Cobham. Playing up the slope of Raynes Park’s Prince George’s Field pitch, Cobham took the lead after 11 minutes when Mark Remnant played in Mark Knight who lifted the ball over the advancing Raynes Park goalkeeper Dale Dye for the game’s opening goal.

Having broken the deadlock, Cobham looked comfortable for the next half hour.

However, the home side finished the half strongest and had a good chance to equalise in the 41st minute.

A well-directed cross to the back post was met with a diving header that forced Cobham’s Rory Parsons to pull off an acrobatic save to turn the ball away for a corner.

The danger had not passed, however, and on the stroke of half time, Raynes Park equalised when the lively Alex Zieleniewski arrived un-marked in the box to fire past Parsons.

A sudden downpour at the end of the first half left surface water lying on the pitch at the start of the second half and both sides took time to adjust to the conditions after the restart.

The home side made the transition faster than Cobham and put the visitors’ goal under pressure with several chances.

Parsons did well to keep Cobham on level terms with a finger tip save, the home side’s pressure finally told in the 66th minute when David Ellard gave Raynes Park the lead with a well-placed shot.

Cobham sought an instant response and went close to equalising two mintues later when Scott Day weaved his way into the box and struck a low, hard shot that Dye did well to stop.

Raynes Park counter-attacked and the Cobham defence were caught flat-footed, allowing Alex Zieleniewski to head home unchallenged to make the score 3-1.

Two goals in four minutes killed off Cobham’s challenge and the only side that looked like scoring in the remaining 20 minutes was Raynes Park.

Zieleniewski missed an opportunity to claim his hat trick when his free kick flew over the cross bar after Simon Moore was fouled by Cobham’s Lee Gamble.

Moore, however, made no mistake with the game’s last chance, completing the scoring five minutes from time.

First printed in: News & Mail Series