This weeks IFA League fixture had to be played on an astroturf pitch due to grass pitches being unavailable. An early inspection found the pitch to be extremely slick with a very high bounce of the ball, maybe not really suited to a competetive match. Players were unable to wear even moulded stud boots which mean't the game had a kind of training session feel about it, although all involved gave the usual 100%.
The Beavers struggled again for numbers and were missing several influential men with the bare eleven being available and also Dave R who played a valuable roll providing medical support and acting as linesman.
Another hot day saw The Beavers make a steady start until after 10mins when an extremely harsh penalty was conceded where the Dulwich player appeared to simply slip over. The Dulwich man nervously prepared himself to take the pen and struck it well wide.
Dulwich continued their push forward and on 20mins opened the scoring with a straight forward tap in. The beavers although under pressure managed to secure a free kick 25yds out, up steps top goalscorer Lee Dev and curls a lovely shot straight into the top left hand corner of the net to level the scores. Stef playing up front battled well opening up two chances for himself but despite his best efforts was foiled by the Hamlet 'keeper.
Following that Dulwich stepped up a gear and started to show a bit of class, knocking the ball around acurately to feet and catching The Beavers repeatedly on the break. This caused untold problems despite the brave efforts of our stand in keeper Curt we went in at half time very hot and 5-1 down. Hampton seeming to play a bit too deep inviting Dulwich to advance.

Half Time: Dulwich Hamlet 5  Beavers 1

A half time re-arrangement saw us revert from 3-5-2 to a more conventional 4-4-2 which to start with saw us create our own space in their half with Simmo and Dave B pushing forward well. This was not to last too long before a major onslaught from Dulwich had Hampton backpeddling with our defenders at full stretch the floodgates started to open. Praise must be given to Paul D, Michael P and Gibbo for sweating buckets for The Beavers to try and keep the score down.
An opportunity arose for us when an opening was seen and Michael P was instructed to push forward which he did, showing good ability he ran 40yds to play a neat pass to Danny who calmly slotted it away to give The Beavers their second goal.
Curt in goal was to suffer a slight finger injury which gave him a chance to swap places with Adam who had worked hard at right back and contiued to work hard in goal and he needed too!
Wave after wave of Dulwich pressure saw a heavy Hampton defeat. Once again though we played out the full 90mins determined to do our best against a very good Hamlet outfit who were a well mannered, fair side.

Full Time: Dulwich Hamlet FC 10  Beavers FC 2  (Goals: Lee Dev, Danny H)

POM: Paul Downes

Line up: Curt, Jamie H, Michael P, Simmo, Gibbo, Adam, Paul D, Lee Dev, Danny H, Dave B, Stef.