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Promotion for Millers - now title beckons

Sanderstead 1s secured a place in Surrey Division 1 for next season, after claiming another three points on Saturday.  Their comfortable 4-1 win away against Woking 3s puts them 13 points ahead of Walton & Weybridge with only three games to play.  Addiscombe remain the only team capable of overtaking the Millers in the league standings, and another win this Saturday will make the Millers uncatchable.

Short corners made the difference in this encounter: Sanderstead won more and converted well to score three of their goals.  Woking on the other hand had just a handful and were unable to capitalise.

John Devaney in particular proved a menace to the home defence, outmanoeuvring the Woking left back to generate several short corners in the first half.  From these Martyn Avery stepped up to score twice, hitting a powerful shot for one goal and exchanging passes with Denzil Dolley for the other.  He narrowly missed out on a hat-trick, seeing another short-corner chance brush past the post.

But it was Woking's centre forward who opened the scoring, taking advantage of a rare lapse in concentration at the heart of the Sanderstead defence.  He drove goalwards and slotted home tidily past Dan Pacitti, though his effort was soon cancelled out.  Dolley hit a fierce reverse strike from an acute angle, which deceived the Woking goalkeeper, giving the Gryphon man his 27th goal of the campaign.

Following the half-time break Mark Bryan extended the Sanderstead lead, slapping home from the edge of the circle after the Millers won their umpteenth short corner.  Meanwhile, his defensive colleagues kept a second-half clean sheet.  Pacitti was called into action for two saves, but Woking offered little in the way of a threat to the Sanderstead goal.

After the game, skipper Avery said, "Promotion has been our ambition from the outset, and it's hugely rewarding to achieve it with four games still to play.  But we'll still be competing hard in our remaining fixtures, and will go into Saturday's meeting with Surbiton in the knowledge that a win will guarantee us the title.  That's quite an incentive to perform well!"