Hampton & Richmond Borough 4 Tonbridge 0

Match 03/16/1311 - Saturday, 9th July 2016 - Pre-Season Friendly

Hampton & Richmond Borough (3) 4 Hippolyte-Patrick 5,45+2, Lowe 38, Kabamba, N. 61
Tonbridge (0) 0
Attendance: TBC

Entrance: £4 Senior
Programme: £2
Mileage: 128/242
Played at Corinthian Casuals
New Ground: 287

Match Report

Professionals within the game always manage to take a positive pre-season from even a heavy defeat such as this one. Whether that is minutes on the pitch, fitness or team shape. Personally, this was a bit of a 'mare and it's hard to draw anything from it. In these days of modern gizmos, sometimes a simple old-fashioned aide is worth its weight in gold. Fearing the M25 becoming a car park, I left home in plenty of time to complete the nearly 60 mile journey to Surbiton, the home of Corinthian Casuals, a ground I haven't previously visited. The M25 did what it was supposed to do, allowing free-flowing traffic to circumvent London. A minor delay ensued as day-trippers descended upon Chessington World of Adventure, but nothing that was putting my arrival on time in any doubt. The satnav was steering me towards the final roundabout before taking me onto the A3 Kingston By-pass. You have reached your destination, Doris proudly announced. Thank-you, got to be somewhere down here then. For the next half-an-hour, I progressed down one side of the bypass, up the other without so much as a sign of a football ground.

I stopped and asked a group of people in a bus stop. Corinthian Casuals, are they a rugby team? The mobile phone was deployed, Google Maps, that will find it. Down the by-pass once more, back up the other side. But this time, I had spotted the slip road that both devices were trying to tell me to go down. Even though I was now on the right road, the King George's Arena was still devilishly tucked away without any signposting. Two signposts, one at the top of the slip road, and the other pointing towards the entrance would have saved me half-an-hour of frustration and a missed kick-off. It's not rocket science, although the GPS system is, of course.

Once through the turnstile and with a very nicely produced programme in hand, it was easy to be impressed with the wonderful playing surface that Corinthian Casuals had produced for this four-team tournament in memory of a previous chairman, Geoff Harvey and their legendary president, Jimmy Hill. Unfortunately, the beautiful carpet had already produced the first goal and it had gone to last year's Ryman Prmeier League champions. Shaquille Hippolyte-Patrick, a Tonbridge loanee last season, the scorer.

The first half was very much one-way traffic with Hampton doubling their advantage after 38 minutes when Jamal Lowe shot into the bottom corner after being sent through on goal.

The game was over as a contest in first half added time when Hippolyte-Patrick cut in from the right and fired a low shot into the far corner across the face of the advancing Anthony Di Bernardo.

Tonbridge made a better fist of the second period but their chances were very few and largely untroubled the goalkeeper. Hampton completed the scoring just after the hour mark when Nicke Kabamaba beat Di Bernardo at his near post with a strong shot.

New signing, central defender George Beavon, took a nasty knock to the head and needed substituting after both players involved received quite lengthy treatment on the pitch.

The one positive that I can draw is that if I ever need to re-visit Corinthian Casuals in the future, I know where it is.