Late equaliser spoils Sidley home record

AN EQUALISING goal in the 90th minute on Tuesday night put a halt to Sidley United's 100 per cent record at Gullivers this season.

The Blues looked as if they may hold out for a fourth successive win at their own ground until Crowborough Athletic's Craig Bishop diverted in a low free kick from James Body to earn a 2-2 draw for Sussex Division One's second placed side.

It could have been worse for Sidley, though, had Greg Thurstans not produced a brilliant fingertip save to touch Dave Adams' drive onto the face of the crossbar in the last of nearly 12 minutes' worth of added time.

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"I would have taken a point before the game," said manager Liam Barham, "and I didn't want to lose straight after winning on Saturday. But I look at it now and think it's two (points) lost really. Possibly last season we would have been pleased with a point, but everyone was really disappointed when we came in after the game.

"I felt we deserved all three points and, considering where they stand in the league, they didn't really trouble us apart from at set-pieces. I was very pleased with the performance and it would have been a travesty if we had lost."

Part of that satisfaction at his side's display would have come from the fact that it was achieved despite the injury-enforced substitutions of Paul Henty and Peter Baker within the opening half an hour.

"That shows the squad is quite healthy," Barham continued. "I didn't think twice about putting certain players in other positions and they performed really well."

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Perform well they did, although they were whiskers away from falling behind towards the end of a tight first half when one time Blue, Nathan Godden, headed against the crossbar.

They took the lead within three minutes of the re-start, however, when Kevin Rose followed up to score for the second successive game.

Adams headed just wide and Thurstans, replacing the injured Peter Newstead between the posts, did well to keep out Dean Chamberlain's cut-back that deflected off Chris Steward, while Dan Woods headed just wide at the other end before Athletic were rather gifted a 62nd minute equaliser.

The usually dependable Thurstans scuffed his clearing kick straight to Liam Bull and the top scorer in Division Three last season made no mistake.

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Chamberlain then fired into the side-netting before Callum Wooller exploited hesitation between ex-Bexhill Town goalkeeper Kusha Movaffagh and Steve Prodger to put Sidley back in front after 73 minutes.

Wayne Clark and Adams were narrowly off target with headers just prior to centre-half Bishop securing a deserved point for the visiting side.

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