On Saturday, Lewisham Borough were hosting the current league leaders of the Kent Premier League, Norton Sports, hoping to build on the previous weeks morale boosting away win to Bromley Green. Unfortunately the home team came back down to earth with a bump.

The home side were hoping to become the first team to beat Norton this season, having had a right go away and getting a 0-0 draw, this with ten-men for most of the second half. With a game plan being driven into the Borough players pre-match, the Lewisham management team of Anthony Sands, Danny Fairman and Ray Williams were confident of gaining a positive result.

The first 20 minutes reflected this as the home team dominated possession and were taking the game to the visiting team. Unfortunately there was no end product and the Norton goalie wasn’t tested once. Jordan Taylor then gave away a needless free-kick 25 yards from goal and Lewisham assembled a three-man wall. The Norton forward stepped-up and fired a superb shot into the corner of the net to give the away team the lead against the run of play.

Within a couple of minutes Norton attacked the space down the left hand side of the Lewisham defence and a low cross was met by a sliding Norton attacker, who smashed the ball against the bar and over.

Not taking this threat seriously Lewisham then gave away a second goal. Jason Campbell tried to be too clever running the ball out of defence and was dispossessed. Within the blink of an eye the ball was fired across the face of the Lewisham goal and blasted past the hapless John Henry.

The away team were now dominating the match as the home side began to become casual in possession and in their passing. Their captain threw them a lifeline however, as Martin West swivelled and fired a shot into the roof of the net from just inside the box having stayed forward from a corner.

A change of tactics at the interval brought the domination back to the home team, but again there was no end product. 20 minutes into the second half Lewisham were awarded a corner and with the Norton keeper’ clearly struggling with an injury, there were strict instructions to put the ball on him. With players making runs towards the six-yard box, the corner was amazingly aimed to the edge of the box and Norton cleared and broke fast. Campbell intercepted the attack, but then gave the ball back to the opposition and two passes later the ball was in the back of the Lewisham net for number three and the end of the game.

John Henry made some amazing saves for the remainder of the game as Norton led the home team a merry dance. One final goal was added near to the end, with barely any celebration from Norton as they knew just how easy a job this had been.

“I am bitterly disappointed with today, especially with the fact that my team were given strict instructions at the start of the match, instructions designed to get three points, which were not implemented at all.” Said Sands after his team’s third defeat in the last four games.

“Any number of tricks, flicks and dribbles are a waste of time if there is no end product and if a ‘team’ defends like we did today, then the opposition will always have a field day. My team has enough talent in it to go so far, but filling-up an serried of Soccer AM’s ‘Show Boat’ isn’t going to win you anything.”

TEAM: John Henry 9, Jason Campbell 6, Marcus Wilson 7, Dwayne Okocha 6, Martin West 8, Erron Dussard 6, Ricardo Harvey 6, Lambert Tsemzang 6, Jordan Taylor 6, Darren Wallace 6, Dinah Diawara 6

SUBS: Chris White 6, Ikeno Page 5, Ousmane Kaba 5.