Chatham Town 0 Faversham Town 1

Match 78/16/1385 - Monday, 16th January 2017 - Ryman South

Chatham Town (0) 0
Faversham Town (0) 1 King 90
Attendance: 179

Entrance: Ticket from abandoned match
Programme: £2
Mileage: 32/5,515

Match Report

In terms of entertainment value, the 27 minutes played in a monsoon in mid-November easily outstripped the 90 of the re-arranged fixture. But just as I was settling for only my third goal-less draw of the season, Faversham's substitute David Blaikie with his first touches of the ball fed a sublime pass through to Liam King who slid the ball past Alex Hyde and into the bottom right hand corner for the visitor's 90th minute winner.

For many seasons, Chatham had a great deal of sympathy within Kent football for being the club that was continually placed in Ryman North and subsequently missing out on the lucrative derby matches enjoyed in the South. Sadly, if the club doesn't start to put together a winning run in the near future, they will have an awful lot of derbies in the Southern Counties East.

Chatham's salvation, they are five points from safety having played two more games than those immediately above them, might come in a fixture list that will bring three of the bottom five to Maidstone Road with visits to three more of the relegation-threatened teams.

Faversham have also had an indifferent season and it is unusual to see Ray Turner's team languishing below mid-table, but they have games in hand and a winning run could see them among the play-off contenders in April.

You would not bet on either scenario ending positively with the quality on display for the most part as both sides set about digging out a much-needed result.

Chatham started reasonably well with Kyron Lightfoot catching the eye but it was all pretty toothless in front of goal where the goals of departed Luke Medley are going to be hard to replace.

Faversham's first sniff at goal came from a Josh Stanford corner that found the head of Jamie Maxted but he steered it wide.

Chatham had a similar chance, with identical result after 28 minutes when a corner from Ryan Flack was headed over by Freeman Rogers.

Reaching the break goal-less was, sadly, a true reflection of the game.

Within a minute of the restart, Chatham's George Benner headed a free kick towards his own goal but was bailed out by a goal-line clearance.

Faversham had the better of the second period. Josh Stanford directed a shot at the goalkeeper and George Monger also brought saves from Alex Hyde.

As the feet slowly turned to ice the goal-less draw looked ever more likely until the timely introduction of Blaikie.

Faversham walked away with the points but there is plenty to play for both clubs between now and the end of April.