Badshot Lea 1, Hanworth Villa 0

An appropriately scruffy own goal made it three wins on the trot for Badshot Lea after a dour game at Krooner Park on Saturday.

With the game seemingly meandering toward an inevitable goalless draw, Stacey Thripp’s ball into the box six minutes from time was glanced past his own goalkeeper by Villa defender Louis Clark to settle the game and move Lea up to 11th place in the Premier Division of the Combined Counties League.

But a third straight win, which crucially pushed Lea eight points above the relegation zone, didn’t leave boss Gavin Smith particularly satisfied.

“I would go as far as to say it’s the worst we’ve played since we took over,” he said.

“I’ve gone away feeling a bit flat, to be honest. We’ve got the points but if any neutral had watched that game they would have said it’s two teams at the bottom of the league. There was no quality, it was just a really poor game of football.”

Chances were few and far between on a grey afternoon in Camberley as both defences enjoyed a fairly trouble free afternoon, although switching newcomer Danilo Cadete to a wider role on the right in the second half did at least give Lea some extra impetus, and it was from one of his darting runs from the flank that Lea fashioned the only goal of the game.

Aside from that, Lea oddly created very little, not least considering their recent form and performances which has seen them move up to mid-table with wins at CB Hounslow and Redhill while only losing to champions-elect Chertsey in stoppage time, again on their travels.

But to be fair to Lea, Hanworth Villa fared even worse and had no answer to a well-drilled back line which included centre back Guy Hollis on loan from Slough and who had Ryan Scott deployed just ahead of them.

“We didn’t look troubled at all,” said Smith. “They didn’t look like scoring and we didn’t look like scoring. It wasn’t a great spectacle.

“It felt like there was a lack of desire and definitely a lack of work rate and energy. It was like our game against Spelthorne (which Badshot Lea lost 3-0) and they punished us for it whereas obviously Hanworth Villa didn’t punish us on Saturday.

“Defensively they never looked like troubling us. We had enough pace at the back to deal with them and the back four did what they had to.”

At this stage of the season, with Lea having ten games left and games in hand on several teams around them, substance over style is the order of the day, including ‘winning ugly’ as Lea did on Saturday.

Since Smith and assistant Dave Ford took over the reins just after Christmas, Lea have picked up six wins in nine games to put them in prime position to cement their place in the Premier Division ahead of a move to a new ground at Wrecclesham next season.

“Obviously we have still got to be wary as any teams can put runs together, so we just need to focus on ourselves and carry on,” said Smith.

“It would be nice not to have to worry going into the last few weeks of the season because you never know what’s going to happen. I’ve been there before and it’s not nice. The sooner we get safe the better but it’s not going to be mathematically sorted for ages, so we’ve still got to approach each game looking to win it and get as many points as possible.

“It would also be nice to finish as high up the league as we can gong into next season on a positive note rather than scraping by.”

With results going their way on Tuesday night, Badshot Lea’s hopes of pulling further away from the relegation dog fight were hit by the weather as last night’s scheduled game at lowly Balham was postponed by a waterlogged pitch.

On Saturday, Lea are home to AFC Hayes at Krooner Park (kick-off 3pm).

Badshot Lea: Clement, Pound, Roberts, Hollis, Bonsu, Scott, Cadete, Pilgrim (Herbert 55), May, Ford (Cousins 52), Thripp. Subs (not used): Francis, Close, Lewington.

nBadshot Lea this week signed defender Connor Gales from Godalming Town.