Grays Athletic 5 Braintree Town 0 (Away)
Tue, August 19, 2003. Kick off: 7:30 PM
SUPER STUFF FROM THE 'SUPERBLUES' by Carol Smith-Allen
On a clear summer’s evening at the Cressing Road Stadium, the Blues outplayed and outclassed a quite poor Braintree Town side, and walked away with their first three points of the season.
The first half was totally dominated by Blues, with the Irons hardly having a single shot at goal. After 15 minutes of play a Braintree official was heard saying ‘we are playing like Grays did last year!' Blues looked fluent, with some very accurate passing; good use of the flanks, and had plenty of goal scoring opportunities. Blues first goal came on 27 minutes, when a pass from Danny Hazledene out wide was met by Freddie Eastwood whose powerful shot from 6 yards totally evaded their keeper. Our second followed just 7 minutes later when Tony Lock lobbed the ball over Paul Rutherford from 12 yards out.
It was then a case of when not if Blues would score their third, and it came on 39 minutes when the quick and skilful Freddie Eastwood had only the keeper to beat, (who had come off his line), whizzed the ball around him and put it easily into the net.
Just before half-time Wayne Vaughan came on for the injured Danny Hazledene.
In the first few minutes of second half, the Irons who seemed to be showing a bit more desire caused Mel Capleton to have to punch the ball away to prevent them from scoring.
Despite the Iron’s increased effort, Blues still had plenty of chances in the first 25 minutes of this half, with shots by Martin Carthy, Ranbir Marwar, and Tony Lock all going just wide. Braintree’s best scoring opportunity of the game came on 57 minutes when Bradley Quinton was through on goal, only to see Mel Capleton make an excellent save by tipping his shot over the bar.
Blues fourth came on 72 minutes when Freddie Eastwood got his hat-trick, with an absolute gift of a goal, when he permeated the Braintree defence (who were leaking like a sieve), leaving him just to hit the ball home.
Goal number five for Blues came just a few minutes before the end, when on his second attempt the prolific Freddie Eastwood put the ball easily past Paul Rutherford. This goal prompted rather loud chants of ‘you might as well go home’ from the also inform Posse.
You could say it was an evening of very good football from the ‘Superblues’, good chips and tea from ‘The Irons’, and Overall an Excellent Result.
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