A crowd of nearly 900 were at Roots Hall to witness the return of Paul Kitson. Paul out of action for the last ten weeks following a groin operation, made an immediate impact with two goals in a win over visitors Chelsea in our latest Avon Insurance Combination fixture. It was the first time the reserves had scored at home in four games.
The West London Club, just one place above the Hammers in the table although with the same number of points, set the early pace as they put our defence under pressure with crosses into the penalty-area. It was Kitson, however, who relieved the pressure when he attempted to set Jason Moore down the right, but Chelsea 'keeper Dimitri Kharine came well outside his area to fly-kick clear. From a corner Lee Boylan headed just over whilst at the other end Moore made an excellent saving tackle to deny the Blues.
With 15 minutes gone, Kitson had a left-foot shot blocked but the ball came out to David Terrier who lofted a left- foot cross over the Chelsea rearguard and Kitson was on hand to take the ball on his right-boot before pulling it back onto his other foot to slot the ball into the corner of the goal across the front of the Chelsea goalkeeper. It took the visitors less than five minutes to equalise when a free-kick on the Chelsea right was knocked into the penalty-area and only partially cleared to Mark Stein who hit a right-foot shot past Les Sealey into the corner of the net. Further exchanges saw opportunities at both ends with Boylan, Joe Keith and Kitson all being on target for the Hammers whilst at the other end Sealey was forced into a fine diving save when the ball was lost on the edge of our box. Five minutes after half-time, we were back in front when Keith broke through midfield and slid his pass between the Chelsea defence for Moore who crossed for Kitson to sidefoot home from 12 yards. Once again Sealey had to make a great save when he parried with his left-hand to deny Stein levelling for a scond time, and a few minutes later dived full length to parry away another effort for a corner to maintain our advantage.
Another break from midfield in the 65th minute ended with Kitson feeding the ball to Boylan in the inside-right channel. Lee's driven cross caused problems in the Chelsea six-yard box with Kharine scrambling to clear. Sixty seconds later, Kitson was substituted by Gary Alexander who successfully linked with Boylan to continue the assault. For the final 20 minutes the Hammers were mostly in control, with Boylan going close on more than one occasion — and apart from a couple of long range efforts from the Chelsea attack, the closest the visitor's came to scoring was when a dipping shot from 25-yards rattled our crossbar.
After the match Paul Kitson commented: "I've only had two days of serious training, so it was great to get back with a couple of goals. There was no reaction to the groin problem but I feel a bit stiff." For the watching Hammers' fans it was obvious to all that Paul had lost none of his sharpness and awareness of where the target was during his long enforced absence.