Westfield 1 Tunbridge Wells 5

Match 43/14/1152 - Saturday, 22nd November 2014 - FA Vase 2R

Westfield (1) 1 Milne 22
Tunbridge Wells (2) 5 Fuller 4,56,85, Cass 43, Radford 49
Att. 155

Entrance: £3 Senior
Programme: £1
Mileage: 138/3,040
New Ground: 269

The FA Vase is synonymous with the upturn in Tunbridge Wells’ level of support. The club has done an excellent job in maintaining the interest that was generated by their 2013 journey to Wembley and when a new run in the competition is underway that support is mobilised and turn up in relatively huge numbers on unsuspecting hosts.

Westfield is a football club seemingly unknown to the local residents of Woking. Living, quite literally in the shadow of their Conference neighbours, their Woking Park stadium is accessed through the doors of a sports centre that was quite easily missed, as I did. Having walked past the entrance and proceeding to walk in a big circle, I asked a pair of Woking supporters if they knew the whereabouts of the entrance, they didn’t even know of the existence of Westfield let alone the gate.

Once inside, it is a rather strange set-up with the main stand of just a few seats set into the rear of the sports centre. There is a nice bar up a set of stairs and from there a balcony can be accessed from where probably about half of the Tunbridge Wells following chose to watch the game. Behind one goal there is another stand which can only be described as small but beautifully formed. When it went to the town planners it can only be assumed that somebody took along a model made out of Lego or from their Subbuteo set as their outline plan. It only seats 50 and evidently was only constructed because they were that many seats short to be able to compete in FA competitions. The stand quickly became bedecked with the flags from the visiting support.

En-route through a heavy rainstorm I had worried that the journey might end fruitless and on first look at the pitch I realised that I was quite lucky that it had passed an inspection. The state of the heavily-sanded midfield area could well have proved a leveler but Tunbridge Wells raced out of the blocks and were ahead within four minutes. A raking 40 yard pass from Jake Beecroft picked out Lee Radford who was brought down. The resultant free kick was met with a glancing header by Joe Fuller into the bottom corner.

To their credit, Westfield were not going to lie down and accept their fate. The Combined Counties League side took the game to the Wells and were unfortunate to have a goal disallowed for a foul on the Wells’ goalkeeper Steve Lawrence. It was one of those decisions that referees always seem to give in favour of the keeper.

They created several good chances with their number eight at the heart of Westfield’s prompting until the goal that had been coming for some time finally arrived on 22 minutes. The right winger skipped a challenge from Tom Bryant and from the bye-line pulled the ball back to Michael Milne who scored from close range.

The half remained evenly contested before, on the stroke of half-time, a Radford shot from 25 yards was spilt by the Westfield keeper to the poaching feet of Brendan Cass to give Martin Larkin a slightly more comfortable half-time talk.

Once the Wells had extended their lead early in the second half the game became largely one-way traffic. A misdirected header from midfield allowed Radford to get between two defenders to side foot into the net from eight yards.

A move of top quality on the hour deservedly put the game beyond doubt. Fuller won the ball in midfield and a 13 pass move ensued that ended with the ball back at Fuller’s feet, who, with a turn and shot into the top corner made it four.

With the lights of Woking’s Kingfield Stadium burning brightly across the park as they fought out a draw against league leaders Barnet, the voices of the 2,600 crowd was regularly audible, one wonders if they, in turn, took note of the celebrating Tunbridge Wells supporters.

The Wells finally made it a nap hand and a score line that perhaps was slightly unkind on Westfield when a corner was headed on by Perry Spackman and Fuller, falling backwards, scored with a spectacular volley to complete his hat trick.

At the time of writing the home club had not announced the attendance, whatever the number it is not an exaggerated guess that the visitors made up 90% of that total. Westfield, in defeat, will no doubt take comfort from their bar takings whilst the Wells waltzed home with the £1,200 prize money.

PS. The attendance was subsequently announced at 155.