Leverstock Green unfortunately failed tonight to build on last Saturday's win, falling 3-1 to Chipperfield Corinthians in what turned out to be a difficult game, though the second half was much more encouraging than the first.

It was a fairly experimental starting eleven that took to the field for Green, and to begin with the two teams looked fairly even. Craig Sharples and Mark Shadbolt both had chances to put Green ahead, but both of their efforts were just slightly over the bar, while Chipperfield's Adrian Abramiani had two chances of his own in the opening minutes, but fired both of them high and wide.

Corinthians midfielder Ian George looked like he was about to send Abramiani on another strong run in the 17th minute, but Green's Curt Dizon came in with a great tackle just as George set himself to send in the cross. Moments later, Sharples had another chance, but he was unbalanced by a tackle from Adam Godfrey, and his shot was over the goal.

The breakthrough came after 23 minutes, when Abramiani went down in the penalty area. He took the spot kick himself, and sent Corinthians into a 1-0 lead. Green looked a little shocked to find themselves behind, as the goal had come at time when they had been having a very positive spell, but as the age old adage goes, goals change games, and this goal saw the momentum move firmly back into Chipperfield's hands. They built on this 6 minutes later, when Abramiani attacked down the right wing, and his left footer found the back of the net to double their lead.

Things started to even out again at this point, although clear goal scoring chances were temporarily limited for both sides, with Green's Kenneth Orenuga and Chipperfield's Tommy Smith finding themselves at the centre of what was turning into a very physical midfield battle.

The teams went in at the break with the scoreline at 3-0, after Smith added to Chipperfield's lead with a header from a free kick on the stroke of half time. Steve Benitez's response was to make all three of his substitutions at half time, and what followed was a noticeable improvement in Green's performance, which saw them make a very attacking start to the half. Alfee Robbins and Curt Dizon were starting to cause the opposition some problems by making some decent runs, while Craig Sharples continued to provide a threat up front. All three of them had chances to score, but to no avail until Sharples was able to get a goal back for Green after 79 minutes, as he slotted a low shot under the diving goalkeeper, Ryan Peach.

Encouraged, Green had a number of attempts on goal in the final few minutes of the game, in the hope of getting themselves back into it. It was all too late though, and they were unable to recover fully from the deficit they had left themselves with after the first half.

The final score was 3-1. This was a very disappointing result for Leverstock Green, but it would be unfair to say that the second half performance didn't give any reason for optimism, as there were some very good individual performances in the latter stages of the game.

(Peter Berman)