The first home match of the season and, again, Grove Challengers turned out in force. New team to the League, Crowmarsh Comets, were an unknown.

The teams started by lining up and shaking hands, then took up positions with Crowmarsh taking the kick-off. Crowmarsh went straight into the attack, but within moments the Challengers responded: defender Dan Stokell pushed the ball up to Jordan Parrott, who charged down the pitch with it and deftly slipped it past the Crowmarsh Keeper.

There followed a long series of exchanges, with both goal keepers working hard to defend their goal. Crowmarsh looked to be better organised at this stage of the game, but their attacks came from too far out and Grove Keeper Josh Tracey scooped the ball up time after time. Any attempts to get closer to the goal were stubbornly deflected by Declan O’Hanlon, Ali Paton, Dan Stokell and Harry Bowman.

A corner to Crowmarsh led to a veritable scrap in front of the Grove goal and, his line of vision obstructed by the number of players, Josh inevitably let in the equaliser.

There followed several determined attacks from Grove and some very near misses from both Samuel Cottrell and Jordan Parrott showed the potential within the Grove team. However, the score remained at 1-1 for a frustratingly long time, until a long shot from Samuel Cottrell shot straight into the right corner of the goal.

The first half finished at 2-1, although a draw would have been a fairer reflection of the game. Grove Challengers had had more shots at goal, but overall their game had remained disorganised and Crowmarsh had dominated the game at times.

For the second half, Manager Gary Stone practically changed the team, introducing five new players on to the pitch.

An early goal from Crowmarsh was disallowed as a player had been off-side, but this was enough to shake up the Grove players. Before long, Jordan Parrott closed in on the Goal Keeper, kept his head as the Keeper came out to intercept, and slipped the ball past him, taking the score to 3-1.

There were some very dangerous attacks from Crowmarsh, but every time the Grove defence, backed up by keeper Josh Tracey, managed to keep the ball away from the net. The Grove game was coming together by this time and some good attacks finally led to an excellent pass from Jordan across the goal mouth, where Connor Haines was ready to flick it into the back of the net.

The remaining minutes of play were desperate, with both sides working hard to maintain possession of the ball. New player James Melotti, assisted by Skye Cooper, came very close to scoring in the last few seconds of the game, but the score remained at 4-1 to Grove.

Summing up the game, Manager Gary Stone congratulated the players on a good result but described their game as “scrappy”. He went on to praise both Jordan Parrott and Dan Stokell for their consistent performance, and took great pleasure in awarding the Man-of-the-Match to Anthony Allen, who played an outstanding role in mid-field during the second half.