Cardea Win In Cliffe Hanger

Cardea managed to respond to their midweek loss to Eunice in the best way possible and get all 3 points against Kings Cliffe away from home.

With a couple of drop outs on the day, Cardea could only name 2 on the bench and decided to change shape to a 442 with Martin Holyoak starting against his former club.

Cardea started slowly and looked like they were shaking off a hangover from Wednesdays result leading to a couple of early chances for Cliffe. The excellent James Wilson making a great save to keep the scores level.

This seemed to wake Cardea up and they started to control the game. The midfield of Ash Baldwin and John Reddell getting the better of their opposite numbers.
The control led to chances falling to Klinkovics and Hart before the best chance of the half fell to Mike Dandrilli 1 on 1 on the right hand side of the area. The Cardea number 9 was only able to shoot wide when a shot to the near post would probably have been better.

Half time: Kings Cliffe 0-0 Cardea FC

At half time, management called for Cardea to keep going, be positive and challenged the team to provide the one bit of quality in the final third that would be needed to break the deadlock.

After an even restart, Cardea management got what they asked for when Dandrilli broke down the right hand side and found John Reddell who picked out Thomas Klinkovics just inside the area and the prolific front man made no mistake in sidefooting past the keeper for his third in 3 games.

The game then went pretty quiet, other than the dissent from the opposition that was now getting them in all sorts of trouble with the referee. This only got worse when Kings Cliffe were denied what looked to be a stonewall penalty. The referee instead booking the player for diving and then booking another Cliffe player for venting his frustration at the decision.

Cliffe were now putting pressure on for the equaliser and Cardea were happy to hold on and play on the counter attack. The Cardea back 5 stood firm and didn’t give away any clear cut chances for Cliffe to make the most of.

Full Time - Kings Cliffe 0-1 Cardea FC

After the game, Junior Jones said "This result was very satisfying for me, a clean sheet and a win. Today's reaction after Wednesday nights disappointing result was key, we fought well and managed the game superbly which is what we have lacked in the past. The team battled well but a special mention has to go to Michael Williams who was fantastic today and was the rock in the heart of defence.

Man of the Match was awarded to Michael Williams for his role in the superb performance from everyone at the back for Cardea.

Cardea are back in action again on Wednesday evening with a trip to Division 2 champions Stilton United.