Tonbridge Angels (0) 4 Derry 48 Theobalds 55 (pen) Turner 85,90+2
Oxford City (2) 4 Benyon 31 Fleet 39 Brown 87,90
Attendance: 473
Admission: Pass
Programme: £2.50
Mileage: 38/2,948
So the household chores of a Saturday morning were scheduled around a kick-off time in Yokohama of 09:00 as we settled down to watch England crowned Champions of the World, or so we had been led to believe by the media. Turn up and it’s ours.
Of course, nothing is as predictable as that and South Africa were not ready to roll over and have their tummies tickled. Even to my less than knowledgeable eye it was soon apparent that the Springboks were more powerful in the apparently vital area of the scrum and as they wheeled the English around into offside positions, penalties built up an unassailable lead. When the second try went over with five or so minutes over, it was time to upsticks for Morrisons and the start of the footballing day chores.
Just as with the rugby, Tonbridge Angel’s game against similarly relegation threatened Oxford City was far from predictable and had a climax that would have had both sets of management watching from behind the sofa, if there had been a couple.
Torrential downpours during the morning had left the ground staff with an awful lot of mopping up to make sure that referee Daniel Lamport gave it the go-ahead.
Tonbridge started the game well and went on to dominate the first half, but somehow, went into the break 2-0 down.
In the first quarter-hour, with Jared Small’s pace causing the visitors concern, Tom Derry had a header deflected wide for a corner; Rhian Bray headed wide whilst the rejuvenated Joe Turner shot narrowly over and had another shot deflected wide.
It took Oxford City 20-odd minutes to mount a serious attack that came to nothing.
But, almost true to form one would say, it was indeed the visitors that took the lead on 31 minutes when a ball lost on the right of midfield was instantly pumped forward into the path of Elliot Benyon who drove a fierce shot between Jonny Henly and his near post.
Eight minutes later, the early dominance of the home side was well and truly put into the past as an Oxford corner from the left was met at the near post with a header from Reece Fleet to put City two goals to the good.
With Christ Tiehi having made way for Khale Da Costa after 35 minutes, Steve McKimm made a second change during the break with new signing Jason Williams replacing Small.
The changes had the desired effect with Derry converting a Da Costa corner three minutes in the half.
After 55 minutes the Angels were level when Da Costa was tripped in the box for D’Sean Theobalds to make no mistake with the spot kick.
The game had a good ebb and flow from that point with both sides having half-chances unconverted. But with five minutes remaining, Chinedu McKenzie linked with Turner before the winger cut in from the left to fire a pinpoint shot into the far corner. As the Tonbridge support celebrated what appeared to be the winning goal, no one was envisaging quite how the game was about to unfold.
Within two minutes, Oxford were level once more as a cross from the left from Nana Owusu found substitute Stefan Brown on the edge of the box with time and space to pick his spot into the bottom corner past Henly.
Joy of Turner’s goal turned into utter despair on 90 minutes when a three man move opened up the Tonbridge defence for Brown to finish.
But those that had braved the weather were rewarded two minutes into time added when a Da Costa corner from the left was met by the head of Turner at the near post and a point, albeit wholly deserved, had been salvaged.
No more sharing of Saturday’s which is a good thing because the heart and brain cannot continue to take the heady mixture of disappointment and celebration in equal measure.
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