Tooting and Mitcham United 1 Corinthian Casuals 2 – 24 August 2024 Report

The Terrors came into this one with three consecutive positive results under their belts, but were undone by a sterling display form the visitors, whose two first-half strikes ultimately proved enough to take the points.

A much better second-half showing, driven on by the two half-time substitutes – Conor Melody and Taz Mahmoud – left Casuals hanging on grimly at the end , but we had given ourselves too much to do to save the game. In an earlier programme this season, when compiling a match report for the Fleet away game, I said that the sort of goal we had disallowed for offside that day will always be chalked off at this level, becuase officials tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the defending side – for whatever reason. I also stated that, though I thought that sort of goal should always be given, I would be the first to shout “well done, Lino” the next time a similar decision was given in our favour. Well, I had that opportunity on this afternoon, as a through ball from a Casuals midfielder found Reyon Dillon seemingly a few inches in front of the Terrors back line, just six minutes into the game. Well, I was wrong, as the Assistant Referee on this occasion seemed reluctant to make any kind of call on his own, without checking first what his senior official wanted signalled. Thus, the flag stayed down, and Dillon’s subsequent goal stood.

We put that behind us, and started to mount some attacks of our own. The best of these saw Kieran Campbell receive the ball inside the box, sidestep a defender, and aim an effort goalwards with the outside of his foot. He just got a little bit too much height on it, unfortunately, and the ball went over the bar. Ash Sheppard and Hussein Siklawi were combining well on the right-hand side of the pitch, and forced a couple of corners in quick succession. From the second of these, keeper Murillo Bernardes dropped on the ball under pressure from the home attack, and the arrival of the physio led to the strange sight of both keepers receiving treatment at once, as Toby McKimm needed the attention of Harry Vesey at the other end. I’m not sure what his issue was, but after a bit of leg-stretching from Harry, Toby recovered sufficiently well to play out the rest of the game without any issues. He was, however, beaten again just before the break, and there were no complaints over the legitimacy of this goal – although the cruel deflection that saw Dillon’s speculative effort from the edge of the box loop up and over Toby would have been enough to defeat most keepers at this level.

The Manager’s response to the half-time deficit was to bring on two attack-minded subs for the second period, and Conor Melody and Taz Mahmoud made an immediate impact as the pair combined nicely when Taz set Conor away down the right and hared forward into the box to meet his return pass. Conor’s inch-perfect ball into the box was coolly despatched for Taz’s first goal in a Terrors shirt, and it was game on. Not long after, we could have scored a near-identical equaliser, as Conor again got away from his marker down the right, and Kieran Campbell had made a superb run into the box in anticipation of the pass, but a defender had also read the move and just managed to toe the ball away before Kieran could set himself for a shot. Toby was forced into a good save with his legs, to deny Reyon Dillon a hat-trick, then play swung to the other end as Darral Wopara played a cross-field pass into Taz who killed it beautifully before curling an effort goalward. He couldn’t get sufficient power into the shot, though, and Murillo was able to gather it (semi) comfortably. Both sides were looking dangerous as time ticked away, but the best chance Tooting could muster fell to Taz again, who got past two defenders, drove towards Murillo and tried to poke it past him as the keeper advanced, but the ball spun up and just over the bar.