Perfect Pollard seals it for Murray and co

Snodland 0

Canterbury City 1

AFTER last week’s disappointing home defeat City got their season up and running with this tough, battling away win, a goal early in the game proving decisive.

The strike in question came after just four minutes when Snodland needlessly gave away a free-kick just inside their own half.

This was superbly curled into the box by Macauley Murray and Mark Pollard, up from centre half, rose above a crowd of players to thump a crashing header past the helpless Snodland keeper.

From here on in a pattern was set with Canterbury pressing forward, the speedy Royston Gough and Renford Tenyue a constant threat to a sometimes unsure and unsteady home defence.

Snodland, meanwhile, relied on the counter-attack.

It was mainly Canterbury in the driving seat, however, and further chances fell to Tenyue, Murray, Gough and Bob Hitchcock, alas all off target.

For Snodland a couple of free kicks had been easily dealt with by the City back five and keeper Roddy Hayward was alert twice to cut out two decent through balls.

On the stroke of half time Canterbury almost got a deserved second but a header from Mills went just wide.

The second half followed much the same pattern as the first, City dominating and Snodland hoping to attack on the break.

The visitors were nearly gifted a second goal on 49 minutes when a free-kick from Hitchcock, possibly glancing off the head of Gough, completely deceived the home keeper but was too high and went over the bar.

Later Gough, still looking for his hundredth goal for City, was unable to get any power into a shot from a Tenyue set-up and, shortly after, Canterbury had a goal chalked off for a debatable offside.

It wasn’t until just past the hour that Snodland posed any real threat to the City goal when a corner from the right was palmed away by Hayward with Pollard getting the ball clear.

Hayward was called on again on 78 minutes, at full stretch to get his fingertips to a cross.

But apart from these two efforts, the home side were kept at bay.

At the other end Pollard headed wide from a corner, Mills stabbed the ball over from a long throw and Tenyue had a shot cannon off a surprised keeper.

With nine minutes remaining, a silly foul on Tenyue earned the home number five his second booking and a red card and City went close from the resulting free-kick.

Canterbury were unable to make their numerical advantage tell goal-wise, but comfortably saw out the rest of the game for a very hard fought and deserved victory.

Canterbury City: Hayward, Friera, D Mills, Baker, Pollard, Tenyue, Murray, Smith, Gough (Keyte), J Mills, Hitchcock (Leader).