4 goals see 4th XI to 4th win of the 23/24 campaign

By Ishan Patel

Hampton’s 4th XI recorded their fourth win of the season, at home, thanks to a clinical hat-trick from Ted Clark. The first half began with a spell of play in which Esher dominated. After beating Hampton’s right-back the visitors’ left-winger cleverly slid a pass across the face of an open Hampton goal, however, the Esher attackers were less alert to the situation and the game remained nil-nil. A nervy start to the game for Hampton. Not long after, Clark received the ball close to the edge of the box, beat two players brilliantly and slotted home the opener, very much against the run of play.
Both sides began to play more attacking football after that goal, with Esher looking to grab a quick equaliser and Hampton looking to add to their lead. Fortunately for Hampton, following some good close control, Kasra Taheri managed to find Clark, with plenty of space once again on the edge of the box, who drilled a low shot into the bottom left-hand corner. 2:0 to Hampton going into the break.
Substitutions were made at half-time, and this only seemed to increase Hampton’s hunger for more goals. That being said, Hampton’s yellow wall of defence stayed very strong and fizzled out all of Esher’s attacks, including a superb goal-line clearance from George Sexton to prevent an early second-half goal for the visitors. After a few attacks from the opposition, and good defensive resilience shown by Hampton, an attack on the counter won Hampton a corner. Fahad Hussain, as he does most of the time, put in a wonderful cross from the corner and Stanley Kelly managed to force their keeper into a fumble with a clever run into the box and grabbed Hampton’s third of the game. Hampton were three for the good and were determined to keep their clean sheet, but also attack at the right times.
Approaching the end of the game, Clark came back onto the pitch after a rest on the bench and as predicted, another counterattack managed to catch out the Esher defence. After good link-up play between Hussain and Clark, the latter was through on goal and unsurprisingly took full advantage of the chance. 4:0 to Hampton, with Clark grabbing his hat-trick late on.
Full-time: Hampton 4-0 Esher College
Scorers: Ted Clark (3), Stanley Kelly