Tonbridge (0) 3 Powell 53 Main 66 Barr 87
Tunbridge Wells (0) 0
Att. 405
Entrance: £5
Programme: None published
Mileage 26/242
Match Report
The Courier Cup was this year played in the memory of George Piper, a stalwart of local football with links to both clubs who had died at the grand old age of 100 earlier in the year. These days in terms of the football pyramid there is a lot more distance than the 6 miles that separate them geographically. Over the years Tonbridge have always been the more senior of the clubs, but when I was a kid the rivalry between them was far greater. In those days both were Southern League sides and I can certainly remember games at both the old Angel Ground (now a Sainsburys) and the Old Showground (now a housing estate) that attracted 3,000 people. It was a good crowd for a pre-season game that turned out for this year’s match, but it still only amounted to 405.
Longmead looked lush and the new hard standing in front of the clubhouse is much more practical than the grass it replaced no matter how ugly it looks. In time to come when there is proper terracing on top of the concrete it will look more fitting. I will see Tonbridge many more times this season so I can focus on them in the near future, so for this posting I will focus on Tunbridge Wells.
Tunbridge Wells are a club in a big transition, one that will hopefully pull them out of the slump in fortunes that has lasted far too long. This is a club that is almost a true to its conservative roots as the town it represents. Culverden is a ground at the end of a leafy road, a small tree-lined bowl. Up to a couple of years ago, when you went for your half-time cup of tea it was served in a china cup, it was a club run by a committee for, well the committee, and that tells the tale.
But as I said the club is in transition and the ex-England international Gary Stevens has taken over the club, the committee has gone amongst much acrimony and Stevens has pledged upwards of £50,000 to take the club forward. His background in Tunbridge Wells is with a local, very successfully run youth side, Forresters. They initiated a partnership with the Wells, to provide their players with access to senior football once they had reached their age limits.
Gary Stevens has said that as a town Tunbridge Wells should have a football club with a much higher profile than they presently have and it is very hard to argue that viewpoint. It is no longer, if it ever was, a small spa town, it is a large, mostly prosperous area that could easily sustain a Conference South team if they were ever to reach those heights. Whether Gary Stevens is the man to take them upwards or whether the old fashioned attitudes of the past eventually prevail time will tell. I hope my home town team will steer at path that at least will mean that their paths will cross Tonbridge’s on a properly competitive basis.
As for the Courier Cup, Tonbridge regained the trophy they lost for the first time last season. For 45 minutes, although the Angels were obviously the better footballing side, the Wells dug in and slowly got a foothold in the game. But an early second half goal put them on the backfoot and two class finishes from the quality of Jon Main and Hamid Barr wrapped up a comfortable win despite losing Matt Lovell to a disappointing pre-season sending off.
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