Billericay Town 0 Tonbridge Angels 1

Match 47/21/1912 - Saturday, 23rd October 2021 - National League South

Billericay Town (0) 0
Tonbridge Angels (1) 1 Modeste 27
Attendance: 866

Admission: £10 Senior
Programme: £3
Mileage: 98/2,670

A little over 12 months ago on a wet Tuesday night, Tonbridge historically won at New Lodge for the first-ever time. Sadly, the event was only celebrated by a few club officials as matches continued to be played behind closed doors as the country battled with the pandemic.

Nice though it was to be part of that small group that witnessed Tom Beere wrapping the game up four minutes from time, it felt wrong that our supporters who had seen so many disappointments at this ground over the years could only watch on from the albeit comfort of their homes via the live stream.

So we fast forward to the present, the United Kingdom, let’s face it, is still in the grip of the pandemic but without the restrictions and supporters are able to travel, on the day a torturous journey to Billericay in the hope that the magic of 6th October 2020 could be recreated.

And with a little bit of Ricky Modeste’s magic, recreated it was.

Steve McKimm has managed to re-acquire the services of Adam Lovatt from Sutton United for a couple of months and he went straight into the team whilst the absence through injury of Craig Braham-Barrett saw Modeste line up in the unusual position of wing back.

The opening 20 minutes saw little in the way of goalmouth action with Joe Turner pulling a shot wide and from a free kick a deflection took the ball narrowly wide for a corner.

In the meantime, Billericay were offering very little of note and, in the 26th minute, Modeste was found on the left wing by Lovatt in a bit of space to advance a couple of yards before curling a shot into the far top corner with the home goalkeeper, Bailey Vose, literally clutching at thin air.

Tonbridge went on to largely dominate the remainder of the half with a couple of half chances falling to Tommy Wood and Modeste.

The second half very much began with the Angels starting where they left off. Ibrahim Olutade was proving a real handful for the Billericay defence and when Wood was bundled to the ground after 57 minutes there was a strong claim for a penalty but this was waved away by the referee.

Half-chance after half-chance continued to fall the Angels way and the nagging thought began that eventually this was going to bite us on the bum as, something of this nature just always happens at Billericay.

The home side literally hadn’t had a single shot on goal as the game went into the last 10 minutes and they started to build a little bit of pressure and, so it was that the moment that never fails to arrive at New Lodge came on 87 minutes when a hopeful ball into the right channel saw the Tonbridge goalkeeper, Jonny Henly advance and, on the decision of the linesman after consultation with the referee, bring down the Billericay player for what appeared to be a very soft penalty decision.

Kweku Lucan stepped up, but his shot was weak, his aim was poor and Henly was able to fall on the ball to save with relative comfort.

In the five added minutes there were some heart stopping moments as Sonny Miles cleared away from the line and with one last gasp effort, Henly was forced into his best save of the match to preserve the points and give the travelling support the joy that they were denied 12 months ago.