Tonbridge (1) 2 Akrofi 42 Allen 61
Folkestone Invicta (1) 2 Taylor 35 Dolan 82
Attendance: 586
Entrance: £6 Senior
Programme: £2.50
Mileage: 38/5,046
Steve McKimm was without goalkeeper, Anthony Di Bernardo, who was unavailable for selection and the influential Nick Wheeler, who was still carrying the strain that kept him out of Tuesday evening’s game at Harrow. Nineteen-year-old reserve team goalkeeper, Louis Lawlor was Di Bernardo’s replacement between the sticks.
The first half was one in which neither side gained a position of dominance. Within the first ten minutes, Alex Akrofi had a snap shot that was deflected over the bar; for Invicta, ex-Angel, Joe Taylor brought a good diving save out of Lawlor and a surging run from Luke Allen ended with a good save at his near post from Folkestone’s Tim Roberts.
The game then settled down into a midfield tussle. Just shy of the half-hour mark, good work from Akrofi set up Nathan Elder for a shot across the face of goal that Roberts did well to turn to safety.
The visitors opened the scoring after 34 minutes. Taylor tried his luck from the edge of the box; the ball taking a wicked deflection to wrong-foot Lawlor.
Folkestone’s lead lasted eight minutes when a run and inch-perfect pass from Allen saw the ball through to Akrofi who buried his shot into the bottom corner.
After five minutes of the second half, Akrofi won a free kick on the edge of the box after being unceremoniously brought down. Allen’s free kick was well saved by Roberts with a save low to his left.
On the hour mark, Allen was brought down on the right hand side of the box. The midfielder took the free kick himself, seemingly bringing a brilliant save out of Roberts, who clawed the ball out of the top corner, but following-up, Akrofi bundled the ball home. After the match, McKimm confirmed in his interview that the referee had awarded to goal to Allen as the initial free kick had crossed the line.
In the closing 20 minutes, Folkestone went in search of an equaliser pushing the Angels back who were struggling to find an outlet in the wide areas. The leveller duly came with eight minutes remaining when Mitchell Nelson gave away a foul on the left hand edge of the box. Ronnie Dolan drove his free kick low and hard past the wall and into the right-hand corner of the net.
Steve McKimm in his post-match interview commented that he felt that his side had dominated for long spells. " We've had a lot of the play and done enough to win the game", he said, "but it wasn't to be in terms of coming away with three points. My target was to have 46 points from 23 games and instead we have 38 points from 22 matches so we are slightly behind , but if we get a win on Saturday we'll be close to that target. We are in a good position, and will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season. We reached the play offs last season so our minimum aim would be the play off final, but remember we don't have a given right to win this league. Players are coming back and we'll only get stronger."
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