Yeovil Town (1) 2 Young 13 Nouble 90+6
Tonbridge Angels (0) 0
Attendance: 2,896
Admission: £14 Senior
Programme: £3
Mileage: 355/1,142
Weather: 18degC., heavy showers
That I didn’t exercise of little bit of commonsense to go alongside what a satnav was telling me was a source of frustration as an expected journey of a little over three hours became five and left us hurrying from the car park with ten minutes to spare and placing our backsides down as the referee blew his whistle to start the game.
Not enough attention was taken to bank holiday traffic and consequently the eternally slow haul round the M25 saw the best part of an hour of the time in hand disappear. Further stoppages on the M3 and the notorious drag past Stonehenge saw the rest of that time evaporate.
Although not a new ground, having twice previously been and seen defeat with Gillingham, this was a much anticipated match for Tonbridge Angels fans. A chance to visit a club that graced the Championship nine years ago entertaining the likes of Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Leicester City and, in the FA Cup, Manchester United.
Huish Park, with a near 10,000 capacity, opened in 1990 and for my first visit in 2006, it was still a relatively new stadium of good standard in League One. Sadly, their drift downwards from the heady days of the Championship to National League South has also seen the ground become tired, a bit outdated and, to be frank, lacking some of the amenities that we enjoy at Longmead.
The home club decided not to open the uncovered away terrace and instead housed the 66 Tonbridge supporters in a block of seats for which they were thankful as the weather also failed to play ball with very heavy showers punctuating the first half.
The journey home was marginally better but another four hours equated to nine hours driving and although the Angels put in a spirited performance and stayed in the game until the final minute of time added, their lack of any sort of cutting edge in the final third failed to produce a shot on target, not what you want from a punishing day.
Yeovil got their noses in front on 13 minutes when Jordan Young finished between Jonny Henly and his near post from the right hand edge of the box. Henly kept the Angels in the game in the first period with several good saves.
Tonbridge offered encouragement to their hardy support in the early stages with shots from Joe Turner and Ibby Akanbi that were not too far wide but, after 64 minutes, the home side were awarded a disputed penalty when Rhys Murphy was brought down, but there had clearly been an offside in the build up. Justice was served as Henly added to his heroics with a save.
Frank Nouble, whose brother Joel was a Tonbridge signing for all of about 20 minutes under Steve McKimm, wrapped the game up in added time to end this forgettable trip to Somerset.
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