CHERRY RED RECORDS COMBINED COUNTIES PREMIER NORTH
THURSDAY 18 APRIL 2024
READING CITY 2 (1) Emil Mursalov (43) Eddie Lee (77)
EGHAM TOWN 1 (0) Armani Morris (59)

At the third time of asking, Egham Town got to play Reading City away. Bad weather and playing four sides on the same pitch had caused the original fixtures to be moved, not that Egham were in any great hurry to play the Berkshire side. In their two visits to Runnymede Stadium they had won 4-3 in the League Cup and 5-0 in the League. Two days prior this game they had hammered Chalfont St Peter 6-1, while three days before that Egham had only drawn 0-0 with CSP. Fair play, then, to co-managers Ben Peden and Adam Humphries for getting the team geed up for what was always going to be a difficult evening.
Egham surprised their hosts with a lively start, pressing them back and nearly getting a reward for their enterprise when, from Armando Pires Costa’s corner, a Humphries header rebounded off a post. It was no shock when City pulled the “goalkeeper has an injury” unofficial time out after half an hour, and equally, given Egham’s luck in the league this season, not a shock when a quick break ended with Emil Mursalov driving the ball past Lewis Gallifent for the opening goal with their first shot on target.
Five minutes into the second half home keeper Jonathan O’Sullivan caught the ball outside the area. Egham and their fans were incensed that only a free kick was awarded. A quick bit of googling suggests that the referee was right. Nine minutes later, after a period when it looked as if the Cityzens would take control of the game, Egham were level. Pires Costa beat full back Luke Donville to the ball and played the ball into David Lopes, who slid it through a gap to Armani Morris. A quick spin and a well placed shot gave Morris his first Egham Town goal. In the 69th minute Gallifent, as so often this season, saved well, on this occasion from an Eddie Lee header. Unfortunately the reprieve was only temporary as a low cross from Dan Warre.
EGHAM TOWN: Lewis Gallifent, George Tucker, Rodney Dos Santos, Dan Brown, Adam Humphries (Captain), Ben Peden, Armando Pires Costa, Callum O’Keeffe, Luke Maguire, David Lopes, Armani Morris. Substitutes: Ben Jordan (Lopes, 75), Billy Murphy (O’Keeffe, 76), Luke Daley.