Burnham’s season up and running with thumping 8-0 win over Wembley

Burnham 8, Wembley 0

Burnham were able to get their Combined Counties Premier Division North season up and running with a comprehensive victory over Wembley at the 1878 Stadium on Saturday.

Having been edged out of the FA Cup by Easington Sports last weekend, the Blues were determined to show their resilience and resolve this afternoon and did so by scoring four goals in each half.

Ben Murray’s men displayed their intentions early on as Jack Penton rattled the crossbar from distance before a man in blue and white flashed a promising ball across the box.

In between these efforts, Benjamin Lawson-Hatch brought Carl Dennison into action, the ‘keeper containing the forward’s shots with ease.

The deadlock was broken just after the half-hour mark when Penton was sent tumbling in the box and Leo Decabo made no mistake with the ensuing penalty kick.

Both Wembley players and supporters believed they should have had a spot kick themselves in the 37th minute when a shot was blocked by a Burnham body on the floor.

The referee, however, did not and moments later, the home side had a second goal, scored emphatically by Rory Merrick from the right side of the area.

It was 3-0 in the 44th minute and 4-0 in the 45th with Jabir Laraba scoring both, the first being the better of the two as he rolled the ball past Charlie Wealands before sliding it into the net.

You’d have thought Burnham were going to take it easy after the interval but that was hardly the case with Laraba immediately showing his hunger for a hat-trick.

It took just four minutes for him to secure that with Firas Chniba unselfishly laying off the number nine after a superb run down the left side of the pitch.

A frustrated and weary Wembley survived a solid 13 minutes before the ball had to be retrieved from the back of their net again, Chniba getting himself on the scoresheet this time from the penalty spot.

With a handful of fresh legs now on the pitch, Wembley gave Dennison his biggest scare of the afternoon in the 71st minute as Jordan went low and hard with his strike.

Penton rattled some nerves next when he thumped the frame of the visitors’ goal.

Ian Davies was unfortunate not to score his second goal in two games for the Blues as Wealands got the better of him in a one-on-one.

Nevertheless, substitute Dan Price helped himself to the seventh goal before Penton eventually got his reward for a hard afternoon’s work on the stroke of full-time.

This result and performance will be hard for Burnham to match this season but, then again, they do have another 37 games to play.