Kingstonian 2-2 Croydon
CROYDON BENNETT !! YOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO CHERTSEY

Kingstonian reserves entertained Croydon from Division One of the Ryman League in the latest round of the Surrey Senior Cup. The K's line up was mainly fringe players, with notable inclusions being Jerome John, Scott Corbett and Ronaldo Dean Thomas. Gary Patterson was there to steady the ship against a Croydon team which included ex K's players Andy Fisher and Soloman Eriemo, whilst John Finch was not named in the squad to play though did return to his old stomping ground.

Chapple appeared to leave the work to McDonald again as BFG wandered around the ground again. Patterson was offered the chance to repeat his amazing left-footed-free-kickery fairly early on in the first half and James Taylor also went close for the K's from a Russ Watkinson cross. Croydon, peculiarly nick-named 'The Trams' did not offer much in reply but it was good to see the ex K's stars back at The Meadow. Andy Fisher was sporting a skin head whilst Solly looked dazzling in his yellow boots. Unfortunately Fisher's return was not as long as it should have been when he was sent off in the 35th minute. The referee, Mr. I Bentley, had already proven quick to dish out bookings so when Fisher performed a terrible foul just outside the area on Andrew Sullivan it was no real surprise that the card produced was red. The resulting free-kick was taken but smashed straight at the wall but came back to Danny Smith whose shot put K's 1-0 up when it found the back of the net having received two deflections on route.

With K's 1-0 up as they came out for the restart all imagined K's to breeze through this one. But the best chance in the early part of this half fell to Russ Watkinson who was put through to a one-on-one with the keeper, but his efforts came to nothing. In the 65th minute though, Croydon drew level after having played with ten men for half an hour. Ben Judge received a ball which sat up perfectly for him and his looped shot smashed towards the right hand side of the goal leaving Jerome John with no chance at all.

The ten men side were soon reduced to only nine players when Jason Brown was sent off for a second bookable offence, yet K's still could not kill off the visitors. Jerome John went on a crazy sortie out of his goal area which almost conceded another but the telling moment came when the Croydon sub Rod Davies managed to get to the end of a through ball and lobbed Jerome.

With five minutes to go K's began to work though still couldn't realise that the best way for an eleven man team to beat a nine man team would be to knock the ball around. Russ Watkinson put in a pacy ball from the right which missed everyone in the six yard box but was then hooked back and allowed Dave Pritchard to get the vital touch. The goal came in the 89th minute and was not a minute too soon, though many in the crowd would have preferred to have lost than be forced to a trip to Croydon for the right to play the winners of Chertsey Vs Molesey in the next round.