Tonbridge Angels Football Club
Vs
Bath City Football Club
Final Score:: Tonbridge 3 - 4 Bath
Venue :: Longmead Stadium
Date :: Saturday 20th October 2012 (15:00)
Tonbridge Goal scorers:: Collin '69, Elphick 90+3', Gayle 90+8'
Bath Goal Scorers:: Sean Canham 11' 72', Chris Allen 39' 56' (Pen)
It was an early start for me from the other side of the country. It was a west country to east country trek today but one that turned out to be a very pleasant one. As always I alighted the supporters coach at Twerton Park at around 09:45 and we were then on our way. All 27 on the coach. After listening to my ipod and playing some Sudoku to kill time we arrived at Clacket Lane services, we had a 30 minute stop and made the 20 minute journey onwards to Longmead Stadium. Our journey time was in total 3 hours and 5 minutes on the way.
When arriving at the ground it was evident that there wasn't much to do, we were dropped right outside the ground which happened to be inside a council park with fields and council houses around it. After taking a few pictures of outside it was time to enter the ground at around 13:15. I was pleasantly surprised that I did not have to use my student ID to get in and parted with £6. I then managed to pick up a programme for £2 which was a good read for a Blue Square South side. With time to kill until kick off I moved my way round to the very nice club shop, which I would recommend visiting if you are at the ground. I went in and picked out a few programmes for 20p each, spending £1.60 in total. I then saw they were selling their kit shorts for £2.50 which I took advantage of and bought some, they are very nice.
I then decided to grab something to eat after deciding not to cough up the ridiculous prices at the service stations. There was a fair deal on offer, but prices were quite high so in the end I settled for a portion of chips costing me £1.80 and a bottle of coke costing me £1.30. The chips were very nice indeed and maybe weren't worth the £1.80 they were charging but filled me up for the day. This left near enough an hour to kill until kick-off, so I got the camera out once again and wandered around the ground taking pictures of the unusual style ground. The ground itself is a very nice one but odd to people who aren't used to non-league grounds. Along the far side of the ground is a single stand that runs the whole stretch of the pitch seating around 200-300 fans under its cover. This was £1 extra to the admission fee for seating. On the near side there is plenty of space but nothing really in the way of areas to watch it from. A bar surrounding the pitch was where most people watched from on that side. The Press box was also located on this side which was in the form of a tiny stand holding 20 people in a rather random position. At either end was my favorite part of the ground. Both ends have a small terrace where fans can gather, maybe fitting 100 in each end which gives the ground such a good atmosphere. They hosted the away and home fans, who swapped ends for each half as is the usual for non league football.
The main stand running the whole length of the pitch
It was then almost kick off and it took a look at the teamsheet to realise the line-up as the tannoy man didn't have a clue what he was saying half the time. I wasn't bothered with the Tonbridge line-up but City lined up as follows; Garner, Ball, Jones (c), Brown, Hooman, Burnell, Connolly, Low, Allen, Keats, S Canham. Subs were; Rollo, Mellor, Norris, Preece and Cummings.
A fairly strong City side but missing 4 key first teamers in Marc Canham, Charlie Griffin, Sekani Simpson and Kerry Morgan. The game finally kicked off in front of a decent crowd, my guess would be 550 as no figure was announced by the home team. Tonbridge took the upper hand during the first 10 minutes, they were causing trouble down the wings and finding far too much space for my liking. Garner and the defence just about saw this dominance out and the game then switched emphasis. On 11 minutes a Josh Low cross from the right was stopped in its path by a handball from the Tonbridge number 5 and the referee rightly pointed to the spot. Sean Canham stepped up to the mark to take the spot kick, but the keeper guessed right and parried away but Low got there first and fired the ball across goal for Canham to poke home from 6 yards to make up for the miss and we went 1-0 up. The game was then firmly in our grasp with Josh Low running the show on the right hand side, although every time Tonbridge went forward our defence were uneasy with their duties. Our second goal came on 39 minutes. The ball was running out just outside the box for a harmless throw in but the Tonbridge number 2 decided to push over Noah Keats as it did and a free kick was awarded. Josh Low whipped the ball in and the keeper punched it into the path of Allen who struck well through the bodies and past the keeper to make it a deserved 2-0 lead.
We then moved down to the opposite end of the ground from the one pictured above. It took us about 5 minutes to find our feet again but we just got stronger and stronger as it went on. 11 minutes into this, yet again Josh Low cut in from the right hand side and moved into the box he took the ball away from their captain Gary Elphick who then chopped him down resulting in both the penalty being given and a yellow card. Low went off from this collision. Allen stepped up for this penalty and cooly slotted home into the bottom left hand corner as the keeper went the other way and it was 3-0! Am I dreaming I thought at the time. We were bound to concede knowing our defence and we did on 69 minutes as a good cross was headed home by Collin to give Tonbridge slight hope. This was to be wiped away 2 minutes later when Sean Canham lashed home a superb left footed strike across goal and into the bottom corner! This put it to bed realistically. Then came the strangest thing I've ever seen a referee do before. With no board to hold up we didn't know how many minutes would be added on but 90 minutes had come and it was 4-1. Come 102 minutes, 12 minutes of injury time it was 4-3. Elphick 3 minutes into this headed home and Gayle 8 minutes into this headed one in. This left 4 minutes of heart stopping scrambles as Tonbridge came so close to getting a 4th! Thankfully they didn't. Nobody could get away from wondering how on earth 6 substitutions (30 seconds each) and 2 goals constituted to 12 minutes of added time. His watch surely must have stopped there was no way it was, and I've never seen 12 minutes played extra before even with a bad injury, which there were none of!
In the end we got 3 points and moved up to 13th in the table, heading into next Saturday when we face AFC Hornchurch. I then clapped off the players with the rest of our fans then headed to the coach and swiflty returned home for 20:30. I thoroughly enjoyed the day out and would recommend it to any person considering it!
Onto the matchday rating!
- Journey to the ground : 8/10
- Build up to the game : 7/10
- Food and drink available : 6/10
- Ground : 8/10
- Game entertainment : 9/10
Total Rating: 28/40 (Very Good)
That is it for this post! You can look forward to AFC Hornchurch (27th Oct), Eastleigh Away (30th Oct) which are the next ones!
Please follow me at @mannojunior and give this a tweet! Until next time I will leave you with a few extra pictures!
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