Cranfield Utd- GMK News- coverage from Crawley Road.

Today GMK News went to Cranfield Utd for its first coverage match of the Club. The last time our reporter saw Cranfield play was in a friendly with Newport Pagnell who beat them five nil at Cranfield. This was before the Swans two memorable finals at Wembley. Newly promoted Cranfield play Rushden and Higham Utd who are placed higher up the league. Both sides are seriously out of contention for a play off place. Cranfield's main target for this season seems to be to consolidate their promotion and avoid a possible drop which often follows a newly promoted club moving into a harder league. Bitter disappointment hit Cranfield almost immediately as they conceded a first goal within seconds of the start kick. To their credit Cranfield in red kept their composure and managed to turn early disastrous chaos into an evenly matched first quarter of the first half which culminated with Cranfield equalising as the clock hit the 20th minute. By the third quarter of the first half Ruhden were clawing their way fractionally ahead with a bit more domination over an emerging deadlock reflected with a Rushden close shot on goal in the 32nd minute.

Cranfield got a bit of luck a few moments later when they were awarded a penalty quick which easily got converted putting them 2-1 ahead. The remainder of the first half was highly competitive which bubbled over into a punch up in the Cranfield goal mouth following an incident which the refereee did not see or was unable to control as a melee of fist exchanges occurred between most players from both sides just after the half time whistle had gone. For several minutes the poor behaviour went on, in which the referee just looked on and did not issue any cards. The second half saw a scrappy evenly matched first quarter with Cranfield nearly scoring following a close shot at the Rushden goal in the 50 th minute. The best form of defence is attack and this proved to be true for Cranfield as they kept stepping up the pressure to hold onto their lead. As more time went on the more Cranfield domination of the game started to increase which in the end got them the 2-1 victory they well deserved.