Fareham 2s: 3
Epsom: 4 (Turnbull, W.Hunt, Midmer 2)
Epsom travelled to the sunny south coast to take on an in-form Fareham 2s side. Epsom had been in decent form but started this match slowly; Fareham dominated the play from the start and soon won a short corner, converted for 1-0. Soon after, Fareham won another short corner and a slick routine made it 2-0. Epsom were staring down the barrel of a hiding at this point, but some solid play steadied the ship and on 15 minutes a quickly worked free-hit found Steve Turnbull who crashed home from a narrow angle, 2-1. The remainder of the half was fairly even with Epsom going in 2-1 down but by no means out of they could raise their level.
The second half saw a far sharper Epsom performance. Straight away, a flowing move down the right played in Mike Atkinson to drive in and tee up Will Hunt to make it 2-2. Soon after, a clinical counterattack down the left saw ‘Magic Mike’ play in James Midmer who linked up with Turnbull to make it 3-2. Fareham came piling back and won a short corner, but this time some brilliant defensive work from James Harris saw him block a shot, sprint to the loose ball and fire an aerial down the line to Midmer, who found Mike Atkinson, who found Liam White, who found Midmer to finish off a clinical counterattack for 4-2. Epsom were flying at this point and soon after Magic Mike drove in again to tee up Midmer who fired just over the bar. Epsom were ruing this miss when Fareham made it 4-3 from a short corner with 6 minutes to go, and then applied a lot of pressure, but the visitors defended the final stages very professionally to secure a valuable three points.
This was a strong performance from Epsom who fired strongly in the second half despite playing it with a skeleton squad of 12 following an injury to Alex Bond. Debutant 16 year old Nico Orr was a unanimous man of the match selection. They rose to 5th in the table and take on Haslemere next week at Notre Dame school next week.