Gravesham U15s played Ealing away in the second round of the ESFA National competition. Gravesham started confidently retaining possession which took Ealing by surprise as they were unable to get to grips with the Gravesham dominance in midfield with players making themselves available and wanting the ball. Gravesham continued to play the better football and were rewarded with a goal from Luke Moore, who drilled the ball past their goalkeeper into the bottom left hand corner, 1-0 Gravesham, (17 minutes). As the battle continued in midfield, both teams conceded some silly free- kicks, but again, it was Gravesham who seemed the more dangerous. A great delivery by Jack Baldwin from the left, just evaded our advancing strikers. This seemed to spark Ealing into life, and they started to look a lot more dangerous, and with their very next attack forced a fantastic save out of Ryan Botley, who managed to force the ball onto the bar, from a point blank range shot. The ball dropped back into play, but luckily Gravesham were alert and were able to hook the ball to safety. Moore, Mazzone, Lovell, Suman and Wilson were really having a battle in midfield and continued to play some neat football.

The second half started off with both sides cancelling each other out, with neither side creating any clear cut chances. Gravesham needed a second goal to kill off any chance of Ealing equalising, but unfortunately it just wouldn’t come. So with the introduction of Dami on for Wilson , the hope was we could use his pace and strength to carve something out for Gravesham and finally put the game out of reach of Ealing. Once again, Ealing were going all out to get something from the game but once more our well organised back four held strong. You could sense and feel the opposition were getting frustrated and with 15 minutes to go, Rajan Hakher was getting called more and more into action. Then with minutes remaining a long ball from Ealing finally penetrated our back line, but thankfully Rajan Hakher was off his line quickly and bravely at the feet of the advancing striker which resulted in the ball going out for a corner, which was wasted and Gravesham held on with a fantastic away win.

Well done to the whole squad and a big thank you to injured Captain Jordan Campbell, who still travelled for the long trip to Ealing.