Walthamstow 5-3 Felixstowe & Walton United
Walthamstow blew away league leaders Felixstowe and Walton United thanks to a ruthless 15 minute second half period.
Walthamstow started brightly, sending a few decent balls into the Felixstowe box, but it was the visitors who had the first real chance of the game. Sam Ford was played through on goal but Stow keeper Finn Rushton was quick off his line and smothered the shot well.
Stow took the lead just after the half-hour mark. Tayo Oyebola gave left back Thomas Warren a torrid time all afternoon, and it was that wing which was the source of Stow’s opener. Oyebola skinned Warren and delivered a perfect cross to Johnson who acrobatically turned the ball past Harry Wright.
But Walthamstow couldn’t hold onto their lead before the break; Sam Ford finishing off a lovely team move from close-range.
The second half started slowly; with little indication of what was to come. But after a sustained period of pressure, Dwight Pascal dropped a perfect ball to the back post, where Oyebola won the first ball, and then reacted quickest to the second to drive the ball home into the far corner.
Two minutes later, Stow doubled their lead. Bilal Sayoud’s corner looked routine for Wright, but Felixstowe keeper was too busy trying to push around the players in front of him. The result was that by the time he saw the ball arriving, it was floating over his head an in.
In the opposing fixture in Suffolk earlier this season, Felixstowe made the second half a real battle, with plenty of physicality and use of the dark arts. But that wasn’t evident this time around, as they crumbled against a Stow side who took advantage of some out of character poor defending from the league’s best defence.
Walthamstow’s fourth came after a mix-up on half way, which Rasheed Salau capitalised on. The Stow midfield set Johnson on is way, and with all the time in the world, Johnson threaded the ball through Wright’s legs and in.
There was a brief moment when Felixstowe might have got back into the game; Ford scoring his second with a lovely finish from the edge of the box, but Johnson made sure of the three points and his hattrick with a clincal finish after Callum Ibe’s shot had dropped to him in the box.
In the dying moments Jack Ainsley headed home from a corner, despite the best efforts of Malaki Toussaint to keep the ball out, but the damage had been done long before that.
The result means Felixstowe drop to second, while Walthamstow reduce the gap to the play-off places to just three points.
Image: Edmund Boyden
