Tonbridge (0) 0
Havant & Waterlooville (0) 0
Att. 515
Entrance: £6 Senior
Programme: £2.00
Mileage: 26/7,421
Match Report
Whether any Tonbridge supporters saw this as a final twist of the knife at the end of a dreadful week, who knows but I think the majority were past caring about other clubs fortunes. In the wake of the depressing, humiliating 7-1 defeat that confirmed relegation from Conference South came the resignation of manager Tommy Warrilow and a column piece from departing skipper Gary Elphick that was akin to dropping a hand grenade into the supporter’s bar.
The match itself saw a great improvement from Tonbridge although Havant would have left Longmead aggrieved at their own inability to manufacture the necessary result as well as some misfortune that would have been ringing in the ears of that Havant supporter that this was probably not to be their day.
The Hampshire club had a goal disallowed, a penalty missed and the crossbar rattled as they desperately sought a winning goal and when they were not guilty of profligacy in front of goal, Lewis Carey stood between them and the three points.
Warrilow got a warm, if not rapturous, reception as those offering applause were willing to put the last 12 months behind them and, at the very least, thank the manager for his efforts over the previous five years. His job is now advertised and we wait to see who his successor might be. Tellingly, one of Warrilow’s failings over his tenure is seen as a criteria for the position, that of “overseeing the development of young footballers to meet their full potential”.
Departing skipper Elphick's final Courier column would have been difficult to stomach for those that haven't used the outlets of social media to demand the removal of Warrilow. Elphick labelled Tonbridge as the toughest atmosphere in which he has played and the Tonbridge crowd "not the nicest". He finished by saying you need a thick skin to manage there, a testament to the length of Tommy's term. You could not, however, disagree with his statement that the club needs a facelift and more passion for the shirt.
It all led me to think, is this club any different to any other? Without doubt, Tonbridge have their share of "moaning Minnie's" but, in my experience, proportionally no more than at Gillingham, for instance.
Whether Warrilow, as an individual, or Tonbridge Angels, as a football club, dislike social media is neither here nor there; Twitter, Facebook or the Angels’ Forum are here to stay and people will vent their spleen when things are going wrong. It is a natural phenomenon of the genre that there will be far greater activity on these mediums of a negative nature than those positive.
In recent months Warrilow suffered badly from those posting their thoughts, some were less than helpful, some were close to poisonous. The man himself always professed that he didn’t read any of the comments, but strangely he always appeared to know what had been written.
His offer to resign six weeks earlier, “to lift the doom and gloom” around the place was rejected by the board. Elphick's column would suggest that this would not have made a lot of difference with this group of players some of whom had got wind of the manager's departure and had "lost sight of playing for the shirt".
Nearly seven years is a long time in management at one club. Players would have heard Warrilow's pre-match team talk a hundred times; supporters would have heard his post-defeat radio interview and thought that it was much the same as the last time. Warrilow was always honest in his interviews, but there is only so many ways of explaining a defeat. In essence, everything had become stale.
Attention now turns to his successor and we await the puff of white smoke from Longmead with eager anticipation. Until this vacancy occurred, I had no idea who Tony Russell was to be honest, but a call to a couple of mates who know the local non-league scene and an internet trawl of my own has formulated my opinion that he might be the man for the job. Presently manager of VCD Athletic, who on Saturday won Ryman North scoring 116 goals in the process, he has a reputation for putting teams on the pitch that want to play football and this has brought him previous success with Erith Town and now VCD. A young and dynamic manager, precisely the criteria in the job description, add in the prospect that he could bring with him a past Tonbridge favourite, Ray Powell, makes this duo a compelling proposition.
On another day in another week, I would have had sympathy for Havant and their supporters, but I had already cornered the market on disappointment.
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