Tonbridge Angels (0) 0
Ebbsfleet United (1) 1 Wright (pen) 34
Attendance: 495
Admission: £8 Senior
Programme: None
Mileage: 38/140
Weather: 26degC. Very hot day, barely cooling
The Angels produced a competitive performance against their newly-promoted National League visitors, Ebbsfleet United, but fell to a narrow defeat courtesy of a first half penalty.
A very hot day had only fallen off by a couple of degrees by kick off time as Tonbridge paraded for the first time their new Hope+Glory supplied kit.
The starting XI was: Henly, Hinds, Lyons-Foster, Swift, Fielding, Wagstaff, Higgs, Gard, Soares-Jr, Tommy Wood, Turner and this group played for the first hour of the game.
Ebbsfleet paid their hosts the compliment of fielding a strong squad and the early stages of the game was played mostly in the middle of the pitch with very few chances created.
On 33 minutes, Jonny Henly made the first real save of the match, saving at his near post, a well struck shot from Greg Cundle.
A minute later, Ebbsfleet were awarded a penalty as Shaq Coulthirst cut across the face of Ruben Soares-Junior and fell to the ground with the referee pointing immediately to the spot. Josh Wright converted from the spot sending Henly the wrong way.
The Angels almost replied within a minute with the Fleet goalkeeper, Mark Cousins, saving well from Soares-Jr and then turning over a Ben Swift header from the resultant corner.
With a couple of minutes to go before the break Henly saved well from Coulthirst and at the other end, Cousins made a great save to deny the Angels’ skipper, Scott Wagstaff.
Whilst Tonbridge made a good start to the second period, the best of the chances fell to the visitors with Henly saving well from Cundle, quickly followed by David Amoo striking a post.
On the hour, both sides made mass substitutions with Parkinson, Powell, Boachie, Nathan Wood and a trialist coming on for the Angels and followed within five minutes by the introduction of Fagg and new signing, Stefan Payne.
Nathan Wood had the ball in the net on 64 minutes but the fans cheers were cut short by a rather late linesman’s flag.
Although the Angels pushed hard to the end, with a couple of free kicks clearing the bar, they couldn’t find a way through the Ebbsfleet defence to find an equaliser.
Despite the defeat, Jay Saunders was pleased with the performance, commenting after the game: “We got a lot out of it. The tempo was good, it was a different test to what we have had and that is what we want.”
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