FC Clacton’s poor recent league record against Ely City continued at a wind-swept Rush Green Bowl as the visitors returned to Cambridgeshire with all three points.

For the 104 fans in attendance, a game of few real chances will be remembered for the two goals scored in it.

It was the visitors who had the first attempt on goal of the match in the 16^th minute.  Following some nice interplay between 3 or 4 Ely players just outside the Clacton area, the ball found itself at the feet of Austen Diaper.  With a clear sight of goal, he was only able to hit a relatively weak shot which was comfortably saved by Joe Playle.

Clacton’s first chance of the match came a couple of minutes later.  A long ball forward from the back bounced awkwardly just outside the Ely area, and Karl Andrade took advantage of a slight miscommunication in the visitors’ defence to nip in and lob the ball over ‘keeper Lee Pacey.  Unfortunately for the hosts, his attempt landed on the roof of the net.

A spell of three consecutive corners for the hosts’ mid-way through the first-half produced a number of chances and very nearly resulted in the opening goal of the game.  First Tom Austin’s in-swinging corner from the right had to be tipped over from under the crossbar by Pacey to prevent it from directly entering the net; and then two further corners from the left, both taken by Kevin Coyle, produced numerous chances and half-chances inside the penalty area, but the visitors defended their lines well to keep the game goal-less.

At the other end, a long throw into the Clacton box by Ben Lawrence caused difficulty for the home defence and the ball had to be eventually cleared off the line by Lee Peacock.

The visitors started the second half brightly, Diaper forcing Joe Playle into a save within the first 60 seconds of the restart, and from the resulting corner Chadwick had an attempt that was comfortably saved by the home ‘keeper.

Excellent work by Karl Andrade resulted in a chance for Sean Hillier on the hour mark.  Chasing down a seemingly lost cause, he kept the ball in play on the left touchline before passing the ball back to Hillier, who hit a curled attempt from 20 yards that was comfortably saved by Pacey.

Two minutes later a free kick was awarded against Andrade for hand-ball just inside the Ely half of the field.  With the home penalty area packed with players, ‘keeper Pacey came up to take the free kick.  Much to the joy of the visitors, and the astonishment of the hosts, his left footed effort, from all of 70 yards, landed just inside the area, eluding everybody before finding its way into the net to open the scoring.

Around 15 minutes later the visitors doubled their advantage when Nick Impey’s in-swinging corner from the right found its way directly into the net.

The remainder of the match saw little in the way of chances, and Ely saw things out fairly comfortably to return home with the victory.