AFC Totton
PRE-SEASON 2022/23 - MATCHDAY 02
Tuesday 12 July 2022
HYTHE & DIBDEN 0
AFC TOTTON 3
Scott Rendell 3mins, 40mins (pen); Jireh Oyebamiji 65mins
For their second pre-season friendly ahead of the 2022/23 season, AFC Totton made the short trip to the Waterside to visit Hythe & Dibden of the Wessex League Premier Division, coming through an often ill-tempered affair with a 3-0 win thanks to a brace from Scott Rendell and a well-taken second-half strike from Jireh Oyebamiji.
Jimmy Ball chose to start with Pascal Kpohomouh operating at right-back. Mike Carter came into central midfield for his unofficial AFC Totton debut, having missed the weekend trip to Tytherington Rocks, and Ethan Taylor also played his first football since his Man of the Match display in the Southampton Senior Cup Final at St. Mary’s Stadium in May. With a combined age of 107, Brett Williams, Scott Rendell and Yemi Odubade made up the front three for the Stags, who took to the pitch in their changed kit of fluo yellow shirts, black shorts and yellow socks.
AFC TOTTON - 1st HALF
1. Lloyd THOMAS
2. Pascal KPOHOMOUH
3. Jordan RAGGUETTE
4. Mike CARTER
5. Luke HALLETT
6. Charlie KENNEDY
7. Yemi ODUBADE
8. Ethan TAYLOR
9. Scott RENDELL
10. Brett WILLIAMS
11. Jake ADAMS
There were no team sheets, so the names of the Hythe & Dibden players will forever remain a mystery. Needless to say, they wore their home kit of all dark green. In fact, both teams were wearing different colour variations of the same Hummel kit design, which we might loosely refer to as ‘Tottenham Hotspur Home, Circa 1986’.
The match started at a lively pace and within three minutes of the kick-off, the Stags were in front. Pressing the Hythe defence back into their left-back’s territory, they forced an error which Scott RENDELL was able to pounce upon, taking advantage of an under-hit back-pass to clip the ball past the goalkeeper’s left shoulder and into the unguarded net behind him.
Totton bossed the opening 10 minutes thereafter, with Mike Carter quickly settling into his midfield minder role, slamming the door in the face of any forward moves from the home team while also prompting his teammates to get on the front foot with some well-directed diagonal passes.
But on 15 minutes, a flash of over-exuberance from Ethan Taylor while tackling back to help his defence resulted in a free-kick to Hythe, 25 yards out to the right of centre. The shot clipped the fluo yellow defensive wall and sailed away for a corner. Two minutes later, Carter’s angled pass out to the left flank freed Jordan Ragguette behind his opposite full-back but his low cross was well-claimed by the goalkeeper.
Scott Rendell almost had a second goal on 20 minutes when a central defender took too long to watch the ball drop near the centre-circle. Rendell charged the ball down, shrugging the defender off in his wake and, with the keeper a long way from his line, attempted an audacious long-range chip which dropped narrowly over the crossbar.
A quick-passing move down the right-hand side involving Kpohomouh, Carter and Yemi Odubade opened up the Hythe defence once more but having carved the opportunity to let fly across the keeper for the far corner, Odubade elected to centre the ball instead, with green shirts getting back in sufficient numbers to smother the chance.
Brett Williams came close with an angled chip from the left of the penalty spot on 29 minutes, which appeared to have beaten the keeper but struck the metal stanchion that extends from the back of the crossbar at the top-right corner.
STRUCK WOODWORK: Jake Adams came close to scoring from a direct free-kick.
A robustly competitive pre-season friendly then took a turn for the more sinister on the half-hour, when the man-bunned Hythe defender wearing the captain’s armband went through the back of Ethan Taylor, sending the attacking midfielder crashing to the deck in a painful heap before he had to be carried off by a combination of physio and teammates. The Hythe skipper was shown a yellow card, and Lewis Waterfield came on to replace Taylor. When play resumed, Jake Adams lined up the direct free-kick from about 25 yards to the left of the D. His exquisite curling shot crashed against the front of the crossbar at the opposite corner of the goal, and the home side were able to scramble the rebound away.
On 38 minutes, Ragguette made a surging run down the left-hand side and, having got to the byline, centred low for Rendell, who couldn’t get the ball under control with his outstretched left foot. But it mattered not because two minutes later, the Stags were awarded a penalty, much to the bemusement of the home fans and coaching staff, when Brett Williams went down while competing for a high ball with a central defender. Scott RENDELL stepped up confidently and slammed home his third goal of the pre-season campaign, so far.
Shortly before half-time, Kpohomouh clipped into the box for Williams to leap high and knock the ball down for Odubade, whose angled snapshot was parried away for a corner. Luke Hallett met Adams’s left-wing corner at the near post, flicking the ball across goal and earning another corner on the opposite side. Adams sent over an out-swinger this time, which Charlie Kennedy managed to connect with but couldn’t get enough power behind it to hit the target.
With a few tackles flying in from either side, Williams was lucky to escape punishment for a late challenge in midfield just before the Referee sounded the half-time whistle.
HALF-TIME
HYTHE & DIBDEN 0
AFC TOTTON 2
As in the game at Tytherington Rocks on Saturday, Jimmy Ball chose to substitute most of the outfield players in order to give other squad members an opportunity to sharpen their match fitness. Goalkeeper Lloyd Thomas changed his shirt and, therefore, his shirt number, but continued to play for the full 90 minutes.
AFC TOTTON - 2nd HALF
13. Lloyd THOMAS
3. Jordan RAGGUETTE
5. Luke HALLETT
8. Charlie PYKE
12. Enrique RUSSELL
14. Jireh OYEBAMIJI
15. Freddie READ
16. Lewis WATERFIELD
17. Adam TOMASSO
18. Harry MEDWAY
19. Callum BAUGHAN
Jireh Oyebamiji was straight into mischief-causing mode, latching onto a short central through-ball to unleash a shot from close range. But with defenders lunging in to block his effort, he sent it too high and harmlessly over the bar.
Hythe & Dibden then flexed some attacking muscle of their own. Their left-winger, though built more like a scrum half, ran like a locomotive to the byline and sent in a high cross that Lloyd Thomas did well to pluck out of the air with plenty of bodies around him. Then, 10 minutes into the second-half, ex-Stag Craig Feeney, who joined Hythe after helping Winchester City to seal promotion to the Southern League Premier Division South last season, spun inside the Totton box to strike left-footed, only to see his effort clip the upright and bounce behind for a goal-kick.
SHUT-OUT: Goalkeeper Lloyd Thomas has two clean sheets to his name from as many games in AFC Totton's pre-season campaign, so far.
Lewis Waterfield tried a long shot two minutes later, after receiving a ball infield from the left by Enrique Russell, but his 25-yard curler bent safely into the goalkeeper’s midriff. Moments later, Feeney got the better of a retreating Luke Hallett, who stumbled to allow the Hythe forward through on goal from their right wing. But Thomas had read the situation well and was able to smother Feeney’s shot at close quarters, despite being well off his goal-line.
Midfielder Adam Tomasso had to resort to underhand tactics to prevent the energetic Hythe left-winger chugging past him after a misplaced pass near the half-way line threatened to open up the Totton defence, but the home side couldn’t capitalise on the free-kick.
Shortly after the hour mark, Hallett’s forward pass from half-way enabled Russell to ghost into the inside-right channel, despite the presence of a defender, but his shot lacked power and was easily taken by the keeper. Russell’s Bermudian international teammate Zeiko Harris then came on in place of Luke Hallett at centre-back,
A similar move into the inside-right channel in the 65th minute saw Jireh OYEBAMIJI latch onto Freddie Read’s pass to thrash the ball across the goalkeeper and into the far corner of the goal to make it 3-0 to AFC Totton.
The two Bermuda players linked up in the 70th minute when Zeiko Harris hit a glorious 40-yard pass from right to left and Russell took it under control with one touch, before drifting infield and letting fly with a right-foot curler that the goalkeeper did well to track and save at the far post.
Wearing the No.8 shirt, triallist Charlie Pyke was booked for a foul on the pacy Hythe left-winger, as the Totton players seemed to be taking it in turns to dish out some heavy treatment on the home side’s most potent threat.
We saw glimpses of a burgeoning understanding between Enrique Russell and Jireh Oyebamiji on Saturday and there were more signs that the two young strikers can unlock defences together when their brisk one-two presented teenager JJ with another shooting opportunity, which this time was deflected into the side-netting behind the right-hand post. The resulting corner was initially cleared, but Ragguette retrieved the ball in midfield, drove past his man and fired a left-footed attempt narrowly over the bar from distance.
A nasty clash of heads in the 84th minute left Harry Medway in need of lengthy treatment, before he was able to continue. Brenno Narezzi managed to sneak into the action at some point, with Charlie Pyke making way. And the young midfielder, who impressed at Tytherington at the weekend, came close to scoring from a short corner routine that presented him with the chance to try a chip to the top far corner, the ball drifting just wide of the right-hand upright.
Tempers flared a little towards the end, with the fleet-footed No.11 going in late on Adam Tomasso, to spark a handbag swinging contest between several participants from either side, earning himself a period in the Sin Bin, which was effectively a red card given how few minutes remained. Then, possibly still smarting from the injustice of it all, Tomasso was yellow-carded just before the end for his part in a clash of heads that did as much damage to him as his opponent.
Speaking after the match, AFC Totton manager Jimmy Ball was satisfied with a job well done:
“That was another good test today, against a side that we knew would be able to push us that bit more. It was a great opportunity to look at the group and try a few different things, and I thought our players responded well. They carried out the things we asked them to on the pitch and when they needed to show a bit of grit and determination when tempers were simmering, they stuck together and looked after each other, which is what I want to see.
"I saw some good things from the team today, and also some things that we are going to have to continue working on. But it was a good exercise and, fingers crossed as far as Ethan Taylor is concerned, but it looks like we came through it with a clean bill of health. It was a poor tackle on Ethan and the Referee had a tough job on his hands at times tonight, but that’s part of football and we just have to get on with it. We’ll wait and see how Ethan is over the next couple of days but he is able to walk on it without too much difficulty, so hopefully it's not too bad.
We have a run of home matches to look forward to now, and it would be great to see decent crowds for those games, most of which are against higher level opposition.”
Next up for the Stags is the Linden Cup match against Totton & Eling at the Snows Stadium on Saturday, kick-off at 3:00pm. The match will be the first of six consecutive home friendlies, culminating in the visit of Southampton on Tuesday 02 August.
By Ben Rochey-Adams
Images courtesy of Craig Hobbs Photography
