Hythe Town rewarded for rolling the dice as Teddy Nelson scores 88th-minute winner at Croydon to preserve 100 per cent record

Fortune favoured the brave as Hythe Town maintained their 100 per cent record this season.

Skipper Teddy Nelson scored an 88th-minute winner in a 3-2 victory at Croydon after boss Andy Crush and his No.2 Marc Richards went for broke.

It would have been easy to settle for a 2-2 draw away to a fellow unbeaten side but Hythe made two attacking substitutions and their bold approach paid off with a fifth successive victory in Southern Counties East Division 1.

“Me and my assistant, Marc, we looked at each other and went, what do we do? Do we settle for a point away from home, when we’re missing a few players, or do we go for broke?” said Crush.

“We took off a defensive midfielder for a striker and a central midfielder for another forward and decided to roll the dice because after they made it 2-2, we got straight back on top.

“We both said, we haven’t come all this way for a point.

“It might have been different at the end of the season but there’s not much difference between a point or no points, whereas three points is massive, so we rolled the dice and it paid off.

“As soon as we scored, we made two other subs and went the other way to see it out with a couple of minutes to go.

“We felt we probably deserved the three points in the grand scheme of things, so we thought, let’s go for it.

“If you lose it doesn’t look great but you’ve rolled the dice and shown what you want to do.

“You don’t want to sit on a 2-2 and defend because if they go and nick another one you look even worse.”

Goals from Josh Byford and Jake Embery were cancelled out before Nelson’s late winner from a corner.

He wasn’t an obvious goalscorer when Hythe were thinking about going for a winner but the big centre-back delivered when his side needed it most.

C