Saturday 23 September
Binfield 0
Hanworth Villa 3
Sam Merson (17′)
George Wells (51′)
Bruno Robertson-Tingle (64′)
In a game played at Binfield’s extremely-pleasant-to-visit Iconic Stadium Hanworth really turned it on today with their best performance of the season. Tactically they were spot on and from the start the game never looked anything but a victory for Villa who showed real intent.
In the 17th minute Sam Merson drove the ball home following an excellent header from Wells. In their most attacking performance for some time Villa dominated the play and could have had a penalty in the 30th minute as Nicholas (who was a constant threat up front) appeared to be dragged to the ground in the box. The ref didn’t agree and waved away protests. There was a wonderful moment in the 39th minute where Sam Merson took a high ball down in his stride before narrowly missing from outside the box in a movement that would have had the pundits on Match Of The Day highlighting if it had been done by Grealish or Saka, a really comprehensive and classy performance by our number 11 today.
More shots before the end of the half from us and were it not for a brilliant reflex save down low from the Binfield keeper Rackley-Hayes, Guy Ansah-Palmer would have added to our tally.
The second half began scrappily but 6 minutes in George Wells fired home to make it 0-2.
For the entire second half we continued to dominate the game and had many chances throughout. Several times Richards made marauding runs into the Binfield half and the excellent Geraghty had chances that could have extended the scoreline.
After an hour or Luca Cardines was replaced by the lively Bruno Robertson-Tingle who five minutes later managed to get on the end of a whipped in pass into the box from Merson and bury it in the back of the net making it 0-3.
Sadly there were no more goals but it was pretty much Villa all the way in one of the most one sided games I’ve seen in a while. Sam Mead came on for Seanan McKillop in the 67th minute and in the short time he was on showed some nifty footwork and managed to earn a yellow card in the last minute. Theo Crawford got our other yellow card with a mis-timed tackle on Rackley-Hayes, who went off injured.
In the 76th minute we swapped a Merson for Merson as Ben came on for Sam. Ben made an impact with several strikes and runs into the box but despite the pressure we failed to add to our total.
Three goals and three points away from home – a great result but with a more clinical edge we could have had so much more. Still, nice to go home happy. Well done lads.