Yellow army chokes on cherries

By dkt
September 18 2002

Rushden and diamonds fall to their 2nd defeat of the season. read dkt's match report on how the yellow army got on at AFC Bournemouth.

As we left home for the Fitness First Stadium, hopes were high.

Delayed on the M40 due to the Sainbury’s lorry driver, who thought parking his lorry on its side would be fun,
we continued on to Bournemouth.

Expecting no more than 50 Rushden fans we were surprised to see that around 150 had made the same journey.

The start to the game was even. The low point was Derby retiring injured early doors.

The Cherries opened the scoring with a peach of a goal on 22 minutes by Purches. I doubt we will see a better strike this season.

Rushden soon got back on track with a goal from Johnny Dempster on 31 minutes.

After the ‘morgue silence of the fans’ at York on Saturday, the Yellow army was in good voice, with a good chant lasting well into the second half

As the second half started and we had the best of the early exchanges.

Our hopes were dashed on 58 minutes when from a poorly defended corner we conceded again from Maher with a looping header.

I was disappointed how the team lost their way after that point. The boys got to the final third of the pitch and lost all idea of how to break the cherries defence.

On 85 minutes Connell who was clearly was their MOM found the net after some ‘schoolboy’ defending from Rushden

So on to a tough game on Saturday.

We will have to show a bit of Spirit.