Ebbsfleet United (1) 2 Bricknell 12, 62
Sutton United (0) 0
Att. 774
Entrance: £8
Programme: £3
Mileage: 62/4,884
Match Report
The overnight rain was torrential and, whilst there was to be a morning inspection at Longmead, there was no hope of the fixture going ahead.
I drew up a list of six fixtures with the hope that one of them would survive the downpour and number four on my list, Ebbsfleet’s clash with Sutton United came through.
This was my first visit to Stonebridge Road since the club came from the near-bankruptcy situation under the ownership of MyFC to the comparative wealth of the Kuwaiti-backed KEH Sports. Liam Daish, who departed Ebbsfleet after eight years of make do and mend, deserves sympathy that on his departure, the new manager, Steve Brown, was offered veritable riches and plundered the transfer market, and his old club Dover in particular, for talent that Daish could only dream of.
Stonebridge Road also has had a spruce up with the incoming investment. New roofs to the Liam Daish Stand (how ironic) and the stand behind the goal, brought welcome shelter from the incessant rain that lashed the ground on the back of a very stiff wind. One surprising status quo, considering that before the takeover a competition to find the worst toilets in football had won the club £100,000 to build a new facility, was that the sniper’s block that serves as the gents was still standing albeit with new stainless steel troughs and sinks. It is characterful; well that is what I tell myself.
What was personally important was that the investment that had been made in a new drainage system had paid dividends and it was because of this that this game was able to proceed.
Ebbsfleet and their visitor’s both occupied top five positions before the start of play and a well contested game was in prospect. Unfortunately the weather conditions prevailed and the game did not quite reach the heights expected.
Ebbsfleet were in search of a ninth straight win that would set a new club record and they got off to the best of starts when, after 12 minutes in which Sutton had made the early running, they took the lead through a flicked header by Billy Bricknell. A cross from the right was unconverted, but the ball was recycled by Anthony Cook whose cross, although slightly behind the striker, was turned into the net at the far post.
Cook was a player that I’ve heard quite a bit about in recent weeks, and he gave the type of curate egg of a performance that I’ve been described. His running with the ball was both exciting and frustrating as too often there wasn’t an end result. In the first half, he was sent clear but his shot cleared the bar, whilst a second half free kick crashed against the crossbar from 25 yards.
Before Ebbsfleet tied up the game just past the hour mark, Sutton were guilty of two glaring misses of Christmas blooper proportions. With a couple of minutes of the first half remaining, the visitors put together a move that cut through the Ebbsfleet defence and ended with Damian Scannell crossing the ball across the face of goal from where the unmarked Charlie Clough was guilty of shooting high and wide from less than six yards. Moments prior to the home side’s second goal, they were once again opened up by a fine Sutton move that saw Dale Binns cut the ball back to Dean Sinclair who then conspired to turn the ball wide of the right hand post from inches rather than yards.
Sutton paid dearly for their profligacy when a long ball out of defence deceived, perhaps with the aid of the wind, the central defender leaving Bricknell in the clear to coolly slide the ball under the onrushing Tom Lovelock. The goal drained away the challenge of Sutton and the home side were able to see out the final half-hour with only addition to the scoreline likely to be their own.
It is good to see that a grand old club like Ebbsfleet (Gravesend) are enjoying the good times, record breaking times, after several years struggling with non-competitive budgets in the Conference National. There is a very good chance that they will return to the top of the non-league pyramid at the end of this season and it will be interesting to see what sort of resources their Kuwaiti benefactors are able to contribute to avoid the desperate struggle with which Liam Daish had to contend.
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