Combined Counties Premier North
The 1878 Stadium in Burnham is one I first visited a month into starting the Wandering Tractor project and has firmly become one of my favourites. It’s a really friendly club with great people, excellent facilities, good food choices and less than an hour bus ride away from home. In my forced shortened season this year, this was the first chance I’d had to revisit and it was great to catch up with many friends at the club.
My bus journey over was 52 minutes of hell. If you regularly read my ramblings you’ll remember an issue with an extremely inebriated man on the bus back from Windsor recently. Lightning struck twice as this journey was punctuated by two pissheads drinking on the bus, abusing each other and anyone else that stepped in, getting louder and more abusive as the journey continued. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to get off the bus! Is it me? Am I somehow attracting them or are there just more about these days?
Anyway, back to the football. The visitors were Holyport who I’d recently had the pleasure of visiting and the game had a lot on it but for different reasons. Going into the game Burnham were sitting second, two points off the top and needing three points to keep pace with the leaders and play-off contenders. At the other end of the table sat Holyport, just two points off the relegation places and needing something out of the game to ease their worries.
From the kick off it was apparent the visitors were set up to try to nick a point playing five at the back and a deep midfield four leaving just Harry Laflin as the outlet further up the field. Their policy paid off in the first half as they frustrated the home side despite the game having a feel of an attack versus defence training ground game.
Wave after wave of Burnham attacks were being repelled by the visitors. Some lovely skills in the box from Shyon Dennis made a chance for Yousif Bouimane but his effort was deflected wide by a desperate last ditch block.
Jordan Brown fashioned the next half chance for Burnham. On the edge of the area with his back to goal and a defender in close attendance, he flicked a pass to Bouimane who snatched at the chance and it went wide of the post.
A nice move through the middle found Brown in space just inside the box only for him to sky his shot well over the bar. The resolute defence from Holyport made it to the half time break without being breached with the blustery wind from Storm Dave (Rodney) not helping the game as a spectacle.
H-T: Burnham 0 Holyport 0
The second half started in much the same fashion, Burnham pushing forward trying to find a way to open the well drilled Holyport defence. A great cross field pass by Yahama Kamara was met by a beautiful first touch from Dennis and he continued his run down the left before firing a ball across the six yard box which was brilliantly blocked away by Dan Wilson.
Dennis was involved again moments later, picking up a quickly taken corner before drifting to the corner of the area and firing a shot on target which was well gathered by Will Cullum in the visitor’s goal.
Kamara was now directing things from just inside the Holyport half and swung another lovely pass from left to right finding the run of Ilyas Kader. His cross to the far post was missed by Cullum and directed onto the crossbar with Callum Childress able to head the ball away for a corner.
The pressure from the home side kept building. A good run by the pacy Soul Hale and cut back to Dennis on the left, was followed by a nice flick to Kamara and the Burnham Pirlo’s strike from 30 yards was tipped onto the bar superbly by Cullum and with the crossbar still reverberating, the ball rebounded away to safety.
In the 83rd minute Burnham finally managed to break through the visitor’s rearguard action and what a way to do it. Substitute Sandro Camara picked up the ball on the right side of the area, turned the Holyport full back inside out going back and forth four or five times and bringing shouts of “ole” each time from the Burnham faithful, before making a yard of space on the corner of the box and arrowing a missile across the keeper into the net just below the top left stanchion. A stunning effort and when you hear a gasp from the crowd when the ball hits the net you know you’ve seen something special! 1-0
Now forced to abandon their plan Holyport were forced into pushing forward to try and reply and leaving space to be exploited by the pace in the home side. In the 90th minute one such break picked out Dennis with just the keeper to beat and he did just that, comfortably sliding the ball past the onrushing Cullum. 2-0
F-T: Burnham 2 Holyport 0
A worthy win for the hosts who kept going throughout the 90 minutes and finally got their reward at the end. It took an absolutely stunning goal to break the resolve of the hard working Holyport side and there were many standout performances for Burnham, Kamara and Dennis in particular for me.
The visitors gave everything and came within seven minutes of holding out against a strong side hoping for promotion this year. Results elsewhere went their way so if they show the same spirit in their last couple of games hopefully they’ll be able to get the results needed to keep them in this division.
It was also great to meet up with Darren, a nonleague vlogger who was there covering the game. He caught the goals on video so keep an eye on his Twitter @Dash71 and YouTube channel NonLeague Dash for those! He’s well worth a follow/subscribe on both! Click here to go straight to his vlog for this match.
On a happier finish to the day I’m glad to report the bus journey home was a much more serene experience!