Sholing 3-1 Lymington Town

Scorers : Dan Mason 9 & 59, Claudio Herbert 28 / Owen Fee 5

Date: Tuesday 14 September 2021, 7:45pm – Pitching In Southern League South Division One

Venue: Mackoy Stadium

Sholing: Ryan Gosney, Ryan Cluett, Marv McLean, Robin Nicholls, Dan Miller, Charlie Wagstaffe, Claudio Herbert, Byron Mason ©, Dan Mason, Joe Adams, Jake Cope. Unused subs : Mitch Byrne, Luke Deacon, Martin Buckland, Yumo Wan & Tomasz Gruzewski

Yellow Card : Ryan Cluett

Lymington Town: Ross Casey, Ryan Fuller, Craig Stanley, Luke Churchill, Nathan Hurst ©, Tim Stephenson, Owen Fee, Sam House (Toby Bailey 69), Ben Satterley, Harry McGrath, Dominic Thelen (Arshia Sheibatzadeh 69). Unused subs : Craig McAllister, Jason Brookes, Callum Davies

Yellow Card:

Referee: Peter Lowe Assistants : Thomas Copping & Michael Hurdle

Attendance: 219

Sands Man of the Match : Dan Mason

Boatmen came from behind to win this local-ish Derby against Lymington and make it 6 wins on the bounce as our impressive start to the season continues. The visitors went ahead early, but Dan Mason quickly equalised and Claudio Herbert prodded in a second before half time. D-Dan headed in his second from a corner to seal the points and bring Sholing within a point of the early league leaders.

Before the game, the Sholing squad were wearing warm-up shirts to promote the Sands Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Charity. For which, Paul & Kelly Moody are doing a 26.3 mile sponsored walk in October to raise money. To read their story and donate to the their just giving page, please click here.

Saturday's win at Bideford came at a cost, with all three scorers that day (Brad, Stu & Conor) missing tonight with ankle & foot injuries. However, Byron Mason returned to action after a month out and Dan Mason, Marv & Jake Cope also boosted the squad. Byron went to centre back with Mitch Byrne dropping to the bench. Joe Adams, Claudio & Copey provided lively support to D-Dan up front. Marc Diaper took charge of the Boatmen. Lymington were managed by Dave Lewis, son of Sholing Vice President Trevor Lewis and this was the first ever Southern League game between the clubs.

Lymington got off to a flying start, taking the lead on 5 minutes when a long punt forward by the keeper caught the Sholing defence napping and Owen Fee happily took control of the ball and fired a well placed shot across Gosney & into the far corner. Casey's kicking wasn't quite as good on 9 minutes as the Boatmen drew level. His clearance went straight to Claudio Herbert on the right side of midfield and he quickly laid the ball into the path of DAN MASON to advance into the right side of the box and drill a shot through the legs of the keeper and in.

The game settled down a bit after that hectic start and the pace & movement of Sholing running with the ball started to cause the Lymo defence more and more problems. Marv Mclean dropped a shoulder and got to the byline with his cut back hitting the back of the keeper, but luckily for him, the deflection took the ball wide. Boatmen turned the game on it's head on 28 minutes with a fantastic team goal. More quick interplay outside the visitors area ended with Joe Adams sliding a perfectly weighted ball in between the defenders for Luke Cope to run onto, skip past the advancing and keeper and hit his effort towards the empty net. It probably had the legs to make it over the line, but with Lymington defenders scrambling back, CLAUDIO HERBERT made sure by knocking it over the line & then entertained us with a "Ronaldo goal celebration". This caused a heated argument between Claudio & Byron as to whether Ronaldo or Messi are the GOAT and eventually, the referee had to intervene (kidding).

There was some more magic by Marv on 41 minutes, a brilliantly executed "Cryuff turn" sent a Lymington player for a hot-dog and more, to dash into the area and smack a right foot shot that was inches away from the far post. Lymington were still in the game and looked lively around the final third, but Sholing went into the break in front. HT 2-1

Lymo looked threatening in the early exchanges of the second half and an uncharacteristic slip by Byron allowed a forward in behind him, he spotted Gosney off his line, but his attempted lob hit the side netting. Sholing started to take control again and after going close from a Ryan Cluett corner, he was to provide the perfect delivery on 59 minutes for DAN MASON to meet it with a thumping header for his second & 6th goal in as many games this season.

The game got a bit scrappy, with a couple of heavy challenges by Lymington going unpunished by the ref. It was at this point that I said to the Sholing fan next to me "I bet the first Sholing tackle gets a booking" and that's exactly what happened when Ryan Cluett appeared to win the ball in a chase with the winger, but the referee thought different and showed him a yellow card. On 75 minutes, Ryan Gosney pulled off a brilliant close range double save to firstly push a Lymington effort onto the post and the follow up header was claimed by Gos.

Jake Cope surged past the opposition to put over a decent cross that was put over the bar by Claudio under a challenge in the 6 yard box. Copey again outstripped the Lymington challenges to get into the area, he checked inside, but sadly put his effort wide of the upright. Jake had another chance on 87 mins after Claudio & Dan Mason had exchanged a one-two to set Copey into space, he tried to dink a chip over the keeper, but it just cleared the crossbar. Sholing saw out the final minutes without too much drama to make it an impressive 7 wins out of 8 games to start this season. FT 3-1

Next Game : Tiverton Town v Sholing - FA Cup - Saturday 18 Sep 3pm

Photos courtesy of HR Media (swipe to view pics)