Rebels Downed In Essex

Slough Town made the long Tuesday night trip to Essex to face Tilbury with the table only seperating the sides by two places and two points.

Slough looked to continuefrom their dominating 4-0 win on Saturday over Great Wakering, but the pitch appeared not to suit Slough's style of play. Despite this, Slough started brightly with Alvin Bubb causing problems with his pace and trickery on a bobbly surface early on leading to an early corner for the Rebels. Spencer corner was met by a glancing Gyoury header which was cleared off the line then cleared to safety.

With Tilbury now being nudged into action by this early scare, Scarborough was left unmarked in the area for the hosts first corner of the game and duly took advantage of the slack marking to slam his header home with only seven minutes on the clock.

Tlibury nearly extended their lead after only ten minutes gone when a back post cross found Johnson having made good progrss down the right wing unmarked at the back post, but stretching to get to the ball, he could not keep his effort down.

With the coniditions of the pitch hindering both sides with its bobbly surface, chances were at a premium and both sides were restricted to playing long ball football which did not suit the Slough side.

With the next chance of the game, Slough were unagain caught out by slack marking to a back post cross as FLouie Evans found some space at the back post and as his goalbound effort was going across the goal, Caine was almost on the line unmarked to poke home with McCann and the Slough defence nowhere.

Slough improved slightly at the start of the second half after coming out early from the half time team talk. Paul Barrowcliff's low near post cross from the left flank was met by Alvin Bubb, but it was more a case of the ball hitting the striker than the striker hitting the ball as it trickled narrowly wide.

Byron Bubb was close to adding to his personal goal tally when pouncing on a half cleared ball on the edge of the box. His first time efort went narrowly wide of Folkhard's left hand angle much to the disappointment of the few travelling Rebels fans behind the goal.

Ryan Spencer also hit a similar effort from the edge of the Tilbury area as his effort also flew narrowly wide of the wrong side of Folkhard's left hand post as the Rebels struggled to get in behind a hard working Tilbury defence. Folkhard proved his value to his side with twenty minutes remaining as he tipped a Byron Bubb free kick over the bar from a similar situation from the goal the young midfielder scored in the FA Cup.

Tilbury scored the goal which finished off Slough's challenge with a clinical counter attack. Ryan Spencer hit a weak low shot which was comfortably saved by Folkhard. His kick then fell to Francis who broke past the challenge of Howard and appeared to control the ball with his arm before slamming the ball past McCann and prompting much argument with the referee from the Rebels keeper whilst the Tilbury side celebrated their sides third goal.

With the final chance of the game in the final minute, sub Tony Boot was on the end of a looped ball into the area by Williams, but could not beat Folkhard with his header from six yards as the keeper pulled out a fantastic save to deny Boot getting into double figures in the goalscoring charts.

Slough huffed and puffed throughout the game, but could not find a way through a physical Tilbury defence and rarely looked like breaking through.

Another disappointing away day in Essex for the Rebels fans.