by Jamie Dickens...

Following two well-earned draws against Enfield and Romford in their last two league games Wingate were hoping to continue their consistent run of form and go one better with a win over AFC Sudbury.

Wingate & Finchley started brightly and looked to continue in that fashion with an early half chance that fell to David Laird, but his shot was closed down well by a determined Sudbury defence.

Sudbury continuously found it hard to keep possession of the ball and the home side looked to be more determined in the fifty-fifties winning almost every ball against their visitors.

However, Wingate became increasingly frustrated, finding it difficult to break down a solid Sudbury back four even after some luscious link up play between Josh Cooper and Lewis Jones.

Young Josh Cooper played a wide role on the left hand side in the first half and caused a huge amount of problems to the Sudbury defence who already had their hands full with Wingate’s second highest goal scorer, Lewis Jones.

Josh Cooper epitomises what Wingate are all about as there seems to be a strong focus on youth with first team coach Andy Zeller linked so closely with the youth team; when asked about this, Andy commented: “We are very keen to promote youngsters coming up through our youth team and whenever we feel a young player is ready to step up to the plate of the first team then they will get their opportunity.”

Sudbury seemed to be chasing shadows for the first 15 minutes resorting to a more direct approach which didn’t appear to trouble the Wingate centre halves.

However, they had to break into more than just a sweat after Daniel Emmanuel of Sudbury showed the crowd what he was capable of with a sublime touch and silky feet to get away from the chasing Wingate players and earn a free kick on the 18th minute mark. Much like most of the set piece chances in the first 20 minutes, this unfortunately came to nothing.

The game started to become more evenly matched with chances unluckily being blazed over the bar on a number of occasions by both sides.

The first clear cut opportunity, and the best chance of the first half, fell to Joe O’Brien of Wingate and Finchley after tenacious work by David Laird upfront.

He cleverly lobbed the ball over Steve Wareham’s head only to have his legs taken from underneath him and earn a free kick in a dangerous position.

O’Brien stood over the ball and searched for the bottom right corner of the goal with his beautifully struck free kick, only to see Sudbury goalkeeper Nicky Eyre scrambling over to knock it past the post for a corner kick.

This indicated the last meaningful opportunity for both sides in the first half as the back lines tightened up and opportunities in the final 15 minutes of the first half were few and far to come by.

A marvellous young talent, Ola Williams of Wingate, looked to have broken the deadlock early on in the second half as Sudbury became exposed on the counter attack only to see his effort saved by the woodwork following the best chance of the game so far.

Wingate’s Williams continued to impress with persistent work down the left flank setting up Lewis Jones for his 14th goal of the season; however it was disallowed by an obvious tug on Jemal Fox in the penalty area previous to the finish.

Sudbury started to dominate the game and looked to make the pressure count following some nippy footwork once again by bright Daniel Emmanuel in attack.

The only thing stopping them from making the breakthrough was a rigid Wingate defence with right back Mark Weatherstone putting in a robust shift.

He was, however, walking a wobbly disciplinary tight rope having being apprehensively booked earlier on in the first half for a tackle which lead to a free kick well dealt with by Wingate when dropped into the danger area; something they should have done when Michael Shinn curled a dangerous free kick into the same sort of area which, this time, was not dealt with by the home side who were left to stand and stare as the ball bounced into the top corner of Bobby Smith’s net.

Up until that point, as the first team coach Andy Zeller pointed out in a post match interview; “The game had nil-nil written all over it, and the teams looked to be quite evenly matched until that point. We try to promote a certain style of football that we believe is the way forward but today it was perhaps our own undoing as our centre halves tried to play too much which led to the free kick which they scored from.”

Wingate struggled in the second half to get to grips with the game and from that moment on, Sudbury refused to put the brakes on as they continued to trouble with more pressure seeing a chance that scraped the outside of the post on the 73rd minute after some stubborn closing down by Ryan Henshaw which earnt possession for Sudbury in a dangerous position.

Much like the weather, the game started to become dull when a fight back from Wingate was expected, it didn’t come. The flood lights were needed to brighten up the afternoon and the football was lacking in bright sparks also. Until Ryan Hemshaw lit up the game with a superb strike to match the travelling fans support. He picked up the ball from 30 yards out on the stroke of 90 minutes and thundered a strike past Bobby Smith into the top corner of the Wingate net. Andy Zeller later on conceded “The second goal was a wonderful strike from a very good young player and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say that there was nothing you can do about that and we’ve been beaten by a beautiful piece of skill.”

Four minutues of added time was indicated and this gave Sudbury just enough time to finish the game off through David Wareham as he broke free of the Wingate defence and, despite the efforts of substitute Rob Ursell, slid the ball past the on-rushing Bobby Smith for Sudbury’s third.

The game ended 3-0 to Sudbury and was very much a game of two halves with the difference being the quality of finishing. When asked what this means for promotion hopes and securing a place in the play offs; first team coach Andy Zeller of Wingate said: “First of all we have to give credit to the players for getting to this position in the league, however, now we are here we want to secure that place in the play offs and after today, we cannot afford any more slips if we want to achieve this goal.”