Josh Youngs snatched all three points for the visitors Fakenham heading in Aaron Dougal’s cross in the 70th minute.

In a game of two halves, Ely create a lot of chances in the first, but failed to find any end product to break the deadlock.
A change of momentum in the second lead to a free header at the front post for Youngs, and Ely chasing the game from that point onwards.

In what was a bitterly cold day, both teams started a little off the pace, playing the long ball over-the-top only to be easily cleared by the centre-backs. However, it was the Robins who had their first decent spell of possession, with full-back Daniel Jeffrey at the centre of it all. Darting down the right wing in the 14th minute, to provide a great ball to the back-post which resulted in nothing.
Little did Ely know this was going to be a reoccurring theme of what was to come.
Fakenham’s forward Kyle Plumb proved a handful for the Robins defence in the first half. A tall target man, Plumb was winning a lot of the aerial battles and did a great job of holding the ball up and distributing it out to The Ghosts wide men.
Ely’s Kelvin Enaro had some great solo runs, weaving in and shimmying out through the centre of the park, cutting Fakenham’s defence into two. Nothing came from the winger’s flair however, and in the 27th minute he shifted from right midfield over to left.
In the 33rd minute the hosts Ely had their best chance of the game so far. A mistake by Fakenham’s Dougal left Matthew Simpson in on goal, with Alex Theobald providing the supporting run. Much to Simpson’s frustration, a scuffed cross saw the ball go well-wide and the chance went begging.
Although it was Fakenham who had the better second half, Ely came firing out the blocks. Liam Griffin sent a beautiful ball in to the penalty area, which was struck clan on the volley by Simpson, only to be directed straight at Fakenham keeper Tom Rix.
Substitutes George Darling and Sam Reed almost made an instant impact for Ely in the 65th minute, when Reed crossed to Adie Cambridge whose volley was bravely met by the head of Fakenham’s Youngs.
From then onwards, The Ghosts started to turn up the pressure. Two good chances in the 67th minute saw Ely keeper Harry Reynolds deny attempts from both Matthew Franks and Ashley Jarvis.
Just a few minutes later and the Fakenham had got their opener, Dougal’s ball in from the corner saw Youngs sneak in at the front post to dispatch an easy header into the bottom corner to give the away side the lead. Craig Neal came on shortly after the goal in place of Ely’s Ashley Shipp, but struggled to make any impact out wide.
The last five minutes of normal time saw both teams come close to scoring. A corner from Ely’s Jamie Alsop fell to Nathan Littlefair at the back post, but his shot went sky high. Fakenham had a counter attack in the last minute of injury time, however a square ball across the face of goal was easily collected by Harry Reynolds and referee David Hutton then blew for full-time.

The result is not what Ely needed heading in to their big 5th round cup tie against Sporting Khalsa FC next weekend. Fakenham however secured their first league win of the calendar year moving up two places to 11th in the process.

Harry Davies