Aiming to emulate their immense achievement of reaching last season's Surrey County Cup final, Brockham Badgers U15A cruised into Round 2 of this season's competition with a crushing 8-0 defeat of Wallington Wanderers from the Tandridge league. Normally slow starters, Badgers were 3-0 up inside 5 minutes and the first goal was scored without an opposing player touching the ball, Liam Ratcliffe putting in a great cross that Jack Wyllie poached at the near post. Next up, Oli Winter combined with George Coffey to play in Harvey Mewis, who finished coolly for 2-0, and Harry Ramsey added the third, using his blistering pace to run onto a long Dennis Rapson clearance and bury a shot in the far corner.
Maybe Brockham relaxed at this point, as they allowed Wallington off the ropes and back into the game, and it took another 30 minutes to add to the score. Once again Jack Wyllie showed a good striker's instinct to score his second from close range, and just before the break Chris Brooks drove into the box and Oli Winter tapped in for 5-0.
Wallington came with no substitutes and, with the second half only just underway, they lost a player to injury and played out the match with 10 players. To their great credit they continued to play some decent football and defended tooth and nail, their keeper making a couple of very good saves, and restricted Badgers to just three more goals. First, George Coffey was tripped in the box and planted the penalty out of reach of the keeper's dive. Then Chris Brooks got his reward for a number of close efforts with goal number 7, before Coffey bagged his second with a close-range header. So a convincing performance all round, but all credit to Wallington who showed flashes of skill as well as resilience and good fitness levels.
Squad: Dennis Rapson, Will Mahoney, Liam Ratcliffe, Matt Higgins, Will Bletso, Oli Winter, Mike Richardson, Frankie Routleff, Josh Brown, Jack Wyllie, Harvey Mewis, Alex Nicholson, George Coffey, Harry Ramsey, Chris Brooks.
Report by Simon Winter
