Thursday 7 December 2017

Tonbridge Angels U21 2 Cray Valley PM Res 1

Match 70/17/1520 - Wednesday, 6th December 2017 - Suburban League Premier

Tonbridge Angels U21 (1) 2 Oladejo 40, Fenton 90+1
Cray Valley Reserves (0) 1 Tumkaya 61
Headcount: 15

Entrance: £3 Senior
Team Sheet: Free
Mileage: 38/4,611

Jack Fenton’s curled shot into the top corner in the first minute of added time extended Tonbridge’s Under-21 Development side’s run to three successive wins, duly lifting them into 10th place in the Suburban League.

The match was unfortunately dominated by a referee that took exception to any dissent, not necessarily a bad thing, but done without using any common sense. He limited physical contact leaving the game stopping and starting every other minute which irritated players and their benches even more which ultimately led to a scrappy match.

The man in the middle made his first decision after just 25 seconds when he decided that Andrew Sesay had been brought down on the right side of the box thus awarding Tonbridge a penalty. Luciano Osbourne’s spot kick was well saved, low to his left, by Cray Valley’s goalkeeper, Chris Cowdrey.

A mix-up between Angels’ goalkeeper coach Stewart Copeland and central defender Emenuele Offin-Ankemah presented a lob towards an open goal for Jordan Sandiford but his effort came back off the crossbar.

Cray Valley had the ball in the net after 23 minutes but this was disallowed, after much confusion, for offside.

Tonbridge opened the scoring, five minutes before the break, when a free kick from 20 yards was beautifully bent around the wall and past Cowdrey by Temi Oladejo.

In first half time added, Oladejo attempted to repeat the trick but his free kick struck with venom was too high.

Just past the hour mark an electric run from Sesay ended with a pulled back pass from the bye-line but Osbourne was just short of contact.

Cray Valley equalised after 69 minutes when a speculative shot from Deren Tumkaya crept in at the left hand post with Copeland motionless.

Tonbridge pressed hard for a winner with substitute Karlan Henry’s header going wide but a draw looked the outcome until Osbourne played the ball inside to Fenton who produced a snap shot that curled exquisitely into the far corner before defenders could close him down for the winner.

On Saturday the Under-21s travel to Corinthian at Gay Dawn Farm for a 15:00 kick off.

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