The Hoops begin their new home league campaign on Tuesday night when they square up with Sheppey United at the Charles Ground (7.45pm).
Both sides suffered opening-day defeats with Sheppey’s the most surprising. Despite taking an early lead through Dan Bradshaw they went down 2-1 at home to Premier Division “new boys” Rusthall from Tunbridge Wells.
On the “plus” side, like the Hoops the Islanders opened their season by winning in the FA Cup extra preliminary round with a 3-2 home success over AFC Croydon and they will also take encouragement from their 4-3 league win at the Charles Ground in January.
But Deal can draw similar encouragement from their gutsy performance in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at early-season title-favourites Crowborough, where they were only denied any reward by two late goals, and Tuesday’s game promises to be another intriguing encounter.
2 Responses
A tremendous team display on Saturday and a similar encounter against a side who are struggling with injuries and have recently lost striker Atkins who scored two pens for Beckenham. Sheppey will play deep and use the speedy wingers on the counter-attack. They are a good side but when hassled they will concede goals and were sloppy against newly promoted Rusthall.
Good luck to the players who will hopefully have a good crowd behind them.
Come on Deal.!!!!
Another toughy coming up!
Lets hope Saturdays’ defeat has not affected the team too much. (What a bummer!) I believe it’ll be a different story when all the players are back from suspension and injury.
Be interesting to see who’s between the sticks on the night,as Tonks will be missed!
Looking forward to a good game and a good crowd to cheer them on. 🙂