Staplehurst Monarchs (1) 3
Lewisham Borough (1) 1
Attendance: 52
Admission: £5
Mileage: 2/4,397
HOME COMFORTS
Almost shamefully, here we are in the closing month of the season and I manage my first visit of the season to my home village club, Staplehurst Monarchs.
This sad state of affairs has not been dictated by apathy towards the club, an evening spent a mile down the road is always a pleasure, but a few personal difficulties plus the ongoing problem of the Jubilee Field pitch have meant that several available Tuesday’s have been lost to postponements.
In the last week we have had the fanfare of the first spades into the earth as work gets underway of a near £1 million project to install a 3G Multi-Sport pitch at the Jubilee. Whilst the installation will bring huge benefits to the Staplehurst community, and in particular, the hugely successful Monarchs Youth programme, which puts many senior clubs to shame in Kent, it will not directly affect the senior sides as the footprint for the surface is outside of the stadium.
So, in the event of another wet winter, the Southern Counties East First Division team and its Under-23 counterparts, are likely to suffer from postponements once more. From the 15th November through to 28th February, Staplehurst were only able to play one home game and, it has to be assumed that this seriously damaged their chances of making one of the play-off spots.
As it happens, they sit in eight place, four points shy of sixth but a whopping 14 points adrift of Lordswood, who occupy the final play-off position and due credit should be placed with Ian Docker, in his first season at the helm.
There was nothing about the pitch that pointed towards its troubles of the past few months as it looked absolutely pristine, freshly mown as a relatively mild evening turned colder into the second half making the decision not to ditch the bigger coat a good one. The evening also brought to first whiff of the Staplehurst slurry, a wicked smell that afflicts the local residents each spring!
Lewisham Borough arrived, sitting in the bottom three just below the dotted line that could see them relegated into county league football. They brought with them a gaggle of supporters, one of which saw himself as a counterpart of the Witham One, regaling the rest of the 52 attendance with his repertoire of songs all on his own.
Lewisham got their noses in front after 10 minutes when a superb pass from Jeff Oredein released Andrea Carrera down the right who ran on to produced a composed finish into the far, bottom corner past Steve Lawrence.
Just two minutes later, the Hurst were level with a remarkably similar goal. This time the Monarchs number seven, Morgan Davidge released his number nine, Manny Cuttress to produce the same outcome. Same move, same shirt numbers, same finish. Quite uncanny!
The rest of the first period was evenly contested with the closest to a further goal coming with five minutes remaining when a 25 yard effort from Staplehurst’s Tagan Kray was fumbled by the Lewisham goalkeeper, who reached behind him to retrieve the ball from the line.
If the first half had nothing separating the teams, the second belonged to the home team who scored twice in two minutes to secure the points.
James Boughtflower made saves to deny Kieran Pallett and Oliver Lankshear before the Monarchs took the lead on 77 minutes when Boughtflower misjudged an inswinging corner from James Delaney that went straight in.
Two minutes later, a cross from Delaney was only partially cleared to the edge of the box to substitute Donnell Sama who drove his shot home.
Delaney brought a good save from the keeper as Staplehurst closed out the game with ease.
