Written By Jack Webb
Jordon Thompson’s late second-half header earned us a deserved point against favourites Farnborough in a 1-1 draw on Saturday at the Bob Lucas Stadium.
Our centre-back headed in Jordan Maguire-Drew’s corner-kick with nine minutes of regular time remaining, getting us back into the game after holding our own for over 80 minutes.
Yet we looked to not be rewarded for our hard work beforehand, particularly after Ricky Holmes gave Boro the lead just after the hour-mark.
But Jordon’s first for the club ensures we have now only lost once in our last six league games.
This scoreline has also defined our results for the last three successive matches, the first time this has happened in over 75 years.
Our good run of results appears to finally reflect our players’ hard work and desire, which, in the eyes of Mark Molesley, was “second to none” on Saturday.
Though our path to redemption continues, as we remain bottom of the National League South, eight points off safety, as we still search for our first league win at home since April.
With Spencer Day’s side sitting at the summit before kick-off, our players knew we were facing a top team on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Yet the first shot on target of the game came from the mighty Terras, when Keelan O’Connell had a go from range 11 minutes in, firing into the hands of Jack Turner.
However the visitors struck back almost immediately afterwards after the Farnborough goalkeeper started a counter-attack and found Holmes, whose curler towards the far-post was easily stopped by Will Buse.
Calvin Brooks was then unable to head Brooklyn Genesini’s corner towards goal after 23 minutes, before Will and Charlie Rowan together helped keep out Millar Matthews-Lewis’ effort away from goal on the half-hour mark.
The visitors would strike back in the minutes leading up to half time, first through Olly Pendlebury, whose free-kick was caught by our goalkeeper, before Edon Pruti found Holmes, whose shot flew out of the stadium.
With both sets of players then heading into the changing rooms, a solid first half from our players against the title-challenging Hampshire hopefuls ensured that we were very much in the game with 45 minutes remaining.
The first chance of the second-half, as with the first, came our way when Ben Greenwood’s free-kick forced Turner to make a catching save nine minutes in.
The Farnborough shot-stopper then started another counter-attack four minutes later which culminated in Richard Chin firing at our keeper, who held firm and kept the shot at bay.
But, after another four minutes passed by, Will wasn’t able to stop the next strike.
In truth, there is little he could have done, after Holmes was found by Joe Haigh, the veteran forward then cutting in from the right to lash a thunderous strike into the top-left corner.
With Day’s side now in the lead with just over 30 minutes on the clock, it would take us something special to rescue the game.
Yet six minutes later saw The Yellows nearly double their lead after Chin picked out Matthews-Lewis, who only had Will in his way.
Thankfully, though, our keeper stood tall to deny the young local forward, keeping us in the match with his heroics.
10 minutes later would see more goalkeeping heroics, this time at the other end from Turner, who rushed out of goal to get to the ball before Jaiden Bartolo.
Matthews-Lewis would test Will again as the game had just entered its final 10 minutes, although his long-range effort this time was more straightforwardly stopped.
By now we had made two sets of double-changes, with Jordan and Ezio Touray being two of our players that Mark introduced.
His changes appeared to work, Ezio winning us a corner with just eight minutes to go.
Jordan then took the corner, the ball meeting our similarly-named centre-back, whose header flew beyond Turner to draw us level late into the second half.
With time ticking, the visitors had the opportunity to snatch all three points, Holmes first combining with his teammates before seeing his shot kept out by our keeper.
Pendlebury then saw his free-kick blocked in stoppage time, as both sides would be forced to settle for a draw.
Still, a point versus second-place, only behind Weston-super-Mare on goal difference, is no disappointing result.
Our next clash is an equally crucial one for different reasons, a bottom-of-the-table battle away to Aveley awaiting us this Saturday [15.00 GMT].
