Eastbourne Town exit to Egham … Eastbourne United can’t ruffle Crows’ feathers

Sitting third in Combined Counties Premier Division North, Egham started the better side against an Eastbourne outfit ninth in the Southern Combination premier.

Excellence Muemba particularly impressed, setting an early tone for his performance, with efforts on goal testing Chris Winterton in the Eastbourne goal in the first-half.

In what was a back and forth affair, however, Egham’s Lewis Gallifent wasn’t without saves of his own to make in the first period, keeping out efforts from Anesu Sisimayi at his near post.

With chances for both sides, the second half was always likely to include drama.

And that’s exactly what we got in the last 20 minutes, when the referee awarded the hosts a penalty after a handball in the area, allowing Fletcher Holman to step up.

But Holman could only find the gloves of the keeper before seeing his follow-up cancelled out for a foul.

Such is the irony of football, Muemba soon found himself hauled down at the other end to earn a penalty for the visitors.

Unlike Holman, Talla made no mistake with his spot kick – and Town’s Wembley dreams were over.

Town host Roffey in the league tomorrow – check the ETFC social media channels for information and confirmed kick-off time, which may be 1pm.

Eastbourne Utd 1 Crowborough 1

SCFL premier

Crowborough were the first team to beat United this season so they arrived at The Oval full of confidence.

United started really brightly and were keen to cause problems to Crowborough’s back line as early as possible.

Great combinations between Ellis Cormack and Matt Thompson saw the United No9 and leading top scorer making it 1-0 to the home side.

The second half was always going to be hard with only a one-goal lead to defend and the visitors came out all guns blazing, while United were trying to defend and catch the visitors on the break.United could have gone 2-0 up in the 85th minute when a great ball from George Taggart to put Aaron Capon just with the keeper to beat but the winger sent his effort just wide.With time quickly running out, Crowborough got their reward with the equaliser with what would be the last kick of the match.

A cross from the left left sub Hary Brown with a tap-in to make it 1-1.

United manager Anthony Storey said; “Crowborough are a good side, and we knew it would be tough.

"We felt we could have scored a few more goals in the first half but we didn’t.

"Second half we knew they would come at us. We defended well but in the the last minutes we paid the price for not converting the chances we created.

"But we have to dust ourselves down and go again.”

United visit Horsham YMCA tomorrow.