The U's eased to victory in the first leg of the inaugural Sutton Advertiser Cup, helped on their way by an early goal from Anthony Riviere. With barely 5 minutes on the clock the ball ran loose on the edge of the Carshalton box and Riviere wasted no time in picking his spot and lashing the ball home from 20 yards. The Sutton midfield was pressing high up the pitch and the visitors repeatedly gave the ball away. A second goal almost followed within 2 minutes, low drive when a free-kick from the right wing was only cleared as far as Tom Kavanagh, 25 yards out in a central postion, but although his low drive evaded keeper Stone an alert defender cleared the ball to safety. At the other end there was a brief hint of an opening for the team in purple but Vines was unable to control a deep cross and his first time effort squirted well wide. Warming to the task, the Robins might have done better when the impressive David Ray got on the end of a free-kick but headed tamely over the bar. Injuries saw Chalmers-Stevens replace Stone in the Carshalton net and Simon Downer come on for Neil Jenkins and a bizarre deflection almost beat Kevin Scriven as Fola Orlionishe's clearance ricocheted off Karim El Salahi. Some slick passing then opened up the visitors' defence as the ball moved from left to right and Tom Davis played in Craig Watkins, whose first effort was saved by Chalmers-Stevens but he kept his cool to calmly strike home the rebound. Carshalton's best chance of the game when Davis fell over as last man and lost possession to Vines, but the number 9 blasted the ball way too high.
The game lost its pattern as the second half progressed with both sides making changes but the U's confirmed their hold on the game when Romone McCrae won the ball in midfield
and Watkins swapped passes with Craig Dundas before rifling the ball inside the near post. Watkins could have completed his hat-trick after another combination with Dundas but was denied by a great saving tackle from Quarm. In the closing minutes Ayres headed over from a good position and Anthony Joseph forced a double save out of Wayne Shaw. A trademark
Dundas run ended with him shooting wide and Orilonishe was set up by some neat interpassing only for the keeper to make a good save. Chalmers-Stevens also denied Alan Bray by tipping his downward header over the bar after he had been picked out by Tony Taggart and then made another good save to tip Riviere's 20 yarder over the bar after good work by Kavanagh.
Afterwards U's boss Paul Doswell was in reflective mood. "I'm fairly pleased with how our pre-season is going so far, not because of the results but the way the lads have applied themselves in training and of course they are seeing the benefit of that in their performances. The new lads have all fitted in well and we have a good team spirit. We were without a few players today: Karl had to attend an ante-natal class,Jay was on holiday and Leroy was at a wedding and, of course, we lost Jenks early on but I don't think we were ever in trouble, we took our chances well and might have had a few more. Some of our passing was very good and a few cominations are starting to appear. We've got three more games but the real hard work will continue on the training ground."
