Carshalton Athletic 1 Tonbridge Angels 2

Match 08/20/1811 - Saturday, 29th August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Carshalton Athletic (1) 1
Tonbridge Angels (1) 2 Greenhalgh 21 Parter 86
Approximate Attendance: 200

Admission: Pass
Programme: None
Mileage: 100/434

We have people! After 24 long weeks, punters paid money to watch Tonbridge Angels, albeit that it was paid to hosts Carshalton Athletic. Personally, I feel I can actually blog a game in my normal manner having previously felt just a little uncomfortable that as an official I have had the privilege to attend games that Tonbridge Angels supporters have not.

It is not yet our time to be able to host paying spectators but hopefully that is just around the corner. Before then a multitude of Covid-19 protocols have to be in place and page after page of guidance read. The world of temperature checks, medical questionnaires, contact tracing, cashless payments and social distancing are no longer the new normal merely the normal.

There are worrying times ahead. How will the older generation that make a up a substantial proportion of non-league attendances embrace the technology of internet ticketing and will they even have the confidence the re-enter the stadium environment. And looming on the horizon is the second wave, or so we are told.

On this Saturday, it was time to meet old friends, not with a hug or shake of the hand but with an awkward fist bump; to swap the odd anecdote of lockdown but to also remember those that haven’t made it through, of which sadly there are more than a few. Football was of almost secondary importance.

But there was a game, Tonbridge barely deserved their win, and certainly would not have done had two gilt edged chances not sailed high over the crossbar. A Ben Greenhalgh drive that deceived the goalkeeper after 21 minutes gave the Angels the lead that was levelled on the stroke of half-time.

A winner came from the unlikely source of Jack Parter with a well struck shot into the bottom corner four minutes from time on a ground that holds some rather uncomfortable memories for Tonbridge supporters in recent years.

We quietly celebrated the goal and the win, after all it was just a pre-season friendly, but most of all we celebrated our return to the terraces with the hope that this time we can see it through to May.

Tonbridge Angels Academy 16 Dorking Wanderers Academy 0

Match 07/20/1810 - Wednesday, 26th August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Tonbridge Angels Academy (4) 16 Copeland 2,12,31,65,66,72 Wotton 43 Lewis 50,52,53,58,61,63,70,75,90
Dorking Wanderers (0) 0
Headcount: 12

Admission: None
Programme: None
Mileage: 32/334

As a teenage goalkeeper in a Mens’ Sunday League team, I once made about a dozen pretty decent saves in a game that brought a demoralising 17-0 defeat. Trudging towards the dressing rooms at full time the opposing striker, who had probably scored a dozen of the goals, put an arm around me in a consoling manner. “Well played goalie”, he said, “without you it would have been 18!” So you can imagine the sympathy I had for a young Dorking Wanderers goalkeeper who had performed heroically but still seen 16 goals pass him.

A young Dorking side were relatively competitive in a first half that saw the Tonbridge Angels Academy go into the break just the four goals to the good. But an early second half salvo that saw a hat-trick in three minutes for Ned Lewis break their resolve and as heads dropped their young custodian was left continually exposed.

Tonbridge went in front after just two minutes when the goalkeeper could only parry a shot from Russell Aleshinloye into the path of Louis Copeland who tucked the ball home without a great deal of pressure. After 12 minutes, Copeland doubled his tally when his fierce drive went underneath the goalkeeper. Cameron Wotton struck the underside of the bar before Copeland completed his hat-trick on 31 minutes when he was on hand to finish at the near post after Wotton had headed the ball down.

There was enough time for Copeland to return the compliment to Wotton, who deserved his goal.

Three second half minutes, three goals for half-time substitute Ned Lewis on 50, 52 and 53 minutes broke the hearts of the visitors and at 7-0, the Angels were left to run riot. Lewis added his second hat-trick with goals on 58, 61 and 63 minutes to bring up double figures.

Copeland decided to rejoin the act with the 11th and 12th goals before Lewis added his seventh with a 70th minute header.

Copeland raced through to collect his double hat-trick and Lewis made it 15.

The Dorking goalkeeper can look back on the period from 75 minutes when the 15th goal went past him to a last minute goal, a treble hat-trick finish from Lewis, with particular pride as he single-handedly saved his side on half-a-dozen occasions. One hopes that his tormentors were a little bit more consoling than mine had been 50 years ago!

Lewes 1 Tonbridge Angels 4

Match 06/20/1809 - Saturday, 22nd August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Lewes (0) 1 (Pen) 62
Tonbridge Angels (1) 4 Turner 40 Akrofi 65,70 Beere 85
Attendance: Behind Closed Doors

Admission: None
Programme: None
Mileage: 76/302

Match Report


A first away game under the Covid-19 measures. The experience was not the best. Temperatures were checked. Dressing rooms were unavailable to the players of both sides.

Tonbridge Angels Academy 0 Gillingham Under-18 2

Match 05/20/1808 - Friday, 21st August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Tonbridge Angels Academy (0) 0
Gillingham Under-18 (0) 2
Headcount: 65

Admission: None
Programme: None
Mileage: 32/226

Tonbridge Angels Academy slipped to a 2-0 defeat against Gillingham’s Under-18 side but there was certainly no disgrace in defeat. Ex-Angels’ favourite, Craig Stone, the Under-18’s manager at Priestfield, said following the game that he thought the Tonbridge side had performed well contributing to a competitive fixture, but that was nothing less than he expected from a team managed by his old mate, Tommy Parkinson.

The Gills first team manager, Steve Evans and his assistant Paul Raynor watched from the sidelines.

The first half can be divided into two parts, the opening 20 minutes largely dominated by the Gills before Tonbridge created the better of the chances in the second quarter. Charlie Martin was called into action in the opening five minutes saving a low shot and a further save from Gillingham’s most influential player, a central midfielder, after 18 minutes. In between, Cam Wotton intercepted a Gillingham backpass to the goalkeeper but shot wide.

Louis Copeland, who gave his marker an uncomfortable 45 minutes with his pace, saw a shot deflected wide for a corner and, on the half-hour, Russell Aleshinloye had two chances in a minute, the first following a cross from Copeland finding the side netting and then heading over from Wotton’s cross.

The advancing Gillingham goalkeeper denied Wotton on 35 minutes as the Angels continued their period of ascendancy.

Craig Stone said of his own side’s first half performance that it had been disappointing with poor ball retention and a lack of urgency whilst Tom Parkinson felt that there had been chances that should have seen his side in front.

The second half saw the visitor’s responding to their half-time team talk taking the lead after five minutes. Gillingham won a corner after Martin saved a shot with his feet but from the resulting corner their central defender rose highest to head the ball downwards with the bounce taking it into the far corner. Protestations that Alex Thompson had been held down were waved away.

Gillingham doubled their advantage on the hour when a free kick was only partially cleared to the edge of the box from where a low shot was driven into the bottom corner.

The League One side largely controlled the second half although Aleshinloye stretched the goalkeeper on a couple of occasions.

Substitute goalkeeper for the Angels, Nat Gibb, made a fine save, tipping over the bar to keep the deficit at two late in the game.

Tom Parkinson felt that the difference between the sides had been in both boxes where the Gills were the better side but the learning experience was fantastic for his boys as it was unlikely they would be meeting sides of this calibre in the coming season.

Both managers were thankful of each other for the fixture and hoped that it built on the growing relationship between the clubs.

Tonbridge Angels 0 Crystal Palace Under-23 3

Match 04/20/1807 - Tuesday, 18th August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Tonbridge Angels (0) 0
Crystal Palace Under-23 (1) 3 Hale 38 Matthews (pen) 45 Street 47
Attendance: Behind Closed Doors

Admission: None
Programme: None
Mileage: 38/194

Match Report


No change to Covid-19 measures

Tonbridge Angels 0 AFC Wimbledon 3

Match 03/20/1806 - Saturday, 15th August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Tonbridge Angels (0) 0
AFC Wimbledon (1) 3 Chislett 9 Piggot 66 Chiabi 72
Attendance: Behind Closed Doors

Admission: None
Programme: None
Mileage: 38/156

Match Report

One day, God knows when, the Covid-19 pandemic will be over and life will return to normal, or the new normal which is the buzz phrase of the times and football will return to normal. Until then, matches will be played behind closed doors with a privileged few able to spectate. I am one of those, as a Director of Tonbridge Angels, but I feel suitably embarrassed that I'm in attendance when many of friends are unable.

For historical purposes, I will use the Tonbridge Angels posts as a sort of Covid-update of where football at our level is in these difficult times.

This was our first preseason game at Longmead with AFC Wimbledon as the visitors who inspected the ground prior to matchday to assure themselves of our protocols.

Those protocols included temperature checking of everybody, players included, on entry.

Welling United Academy 2 Tonbridge Angels Academy 4

Match 02/20/1805 - Friday, 14th August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Welling United Academy (1) 2
Tonbridge Angels Academy (2) 4 Wotton 31,52 Copeland 43 Lewis (pen) 69
Headcount: 25

Admission: Free
Programme: None
Mileage: 68/118

Tonbridge Angels Academy eased to a well deserved victory against Welling United, who will themselves take a good many positives from their performance.

Our Academy fielded four first year students from the outset with another two coming off the bench, none of them looked out of place and all contributed to the team’s performance.

Tonbridge dominated the early stages and should have gone ahead after 10 minutes when Joe Rowe steered a header wide at the far post from a Ben Twist corner.

Half-chances fell to Saul Musengeyi and Louis Copeland, whose pace down the right was far too hot for the hosts to handle. So it was against the run of play when Welling took the lead after 26 minutes when a defence splitting pass sent a forward clear to tuck his shot past Charlie Martin and into the far corner.

The lead was only to last two minutes as the Angels struck back with a Copeland cross being converted at the far post by Cam Wotton.

Two minutes before the break, Tonbridge got their noses in front when Copeland scored following some good wing back play from Chester Smith. The lead was preserved when in the closing seconds, Martin made a good save.

After seven minutes of the second half, good work from Joe Tyrie led to Wotton finishing with a close range header.

The visitors dominated for the majority of the second half with the Welling goalkeeper making a fine save to deny Copeland and winning a personal battle with Ned Lewis.

Lewis was not be denied though and when he was brought down in the box, he dusted himself down to convert from the spot after 69 minutes.

Welling made a late stand and, with the aid of a referee’s dodgy watch that extended the second period to 55 minutes (what goes on in Welling stays in Welling, but the ref came from Tonbridge!), they pulled one back with a shot into the bottom corner and might have reduced the deficit even further but for a Martin save at the feet the goal scoring forward.

Academy manager Tommy Parkinson was encouraged with the opening day of preseason reflecting that there were good and bad parts of the game but also adding that a couple of players unavailable for this game will undoubtedly strengthen the team further.

Guru Nanak 1 Sporting Bengal 3

Match 01/20/1804 - Saturday, 1st August 2020 - Pre-Season Friendly

Guruk Nanak (0) 1
Sporting Bengal (0) 3
Headcount: 75
New Ground: 343

Admission: Free
Programme: None
Mileage: 50/50

When I walked away from Concord Rangers on 14th March, although fully aware of the seriousness of the Covid-19 outbreak, I and a think many others, were not quite expecting it to be 19 weeks before I stepped inside a football ground again. And for those without an interest in Step 7 football, it could be another eight weeks before they take similar first steps.

The loss of live football has been just a minor irritation in the great scheme of things as, I’m sure, everybody knows someone who has died; someone who has lost their job or someone who has seen their business close. For those of us who didn’t experience the Second World War this has been the strangest, most harrowing times of our lives and we are far, far away from being out of the woods.

German football led the way in staging Bundesliga matches behind closed doors and, armed with that knowledge, the Premier League managed to convince the Government that the same could be done here and so we embarked on a 90-odd day feast of televised football in which even the BBC were allowed to partake. Despite the fact that Liverpool had all but won the Premier League prior to lockdown it was fun, but although the canned crowd noise belied the empty stadiums, it was no substitute for the real thing whether you are used to watching your football with 75,000 inside Old Trafford or 75 at Guru Nanak.

And so it was a week previously that it became apparent that under the present set of the revised guidelines, spectators would be allowed to take their places at Step 7 or as the Government labelled it, Grassroots Football. The Pre-Season fixture lists were immediately scanned and there were a couple of opportunities relatively locally, one of which, Guru Nanak, offering a new ground to visit was an obvious choice.

Saturday morning felt the same as any first Pre-Season Saturday which normally would have been just four weeks but the length of time of this off-season was highlighted as the collection of my football paraphernalia showed the camera to have a flat battery! But there was an excitement as the car pulled off the drive, I was on my way to a match. A traffic hold-up at the top of Bluebell Hill saw me anxiously watching the time of arrival tick dangerously close to kick-off but this just added to moment.

Guru Nanak, of the Kent County League Division One Central and East played host to Sporting Bengal of the Essex Senior League, and to be fair and considering the normal nature of a Pre-Season Friendly, produced a really decent game with one or two individuals from both sides catching the eye with a quality that wasn’t really expected of Step 7 football.

After a goalless first two periods of 30 minutes in which both goalkeeper excelled with Sporting Bengal’s custodian saving a twice-taken penalty after 15 minutes, the visitors took the lead after 61 minutes with a penalty of their own. Bengal doubled their advantage after 75 minutes when their winger cut in from the left and buried a shot into the far corner. Guru Nanak were awarded another opportunity from the spot with a minute to go which they converted but Bengal still had time to restore their two goal win in time added.

Guru Nanak’s Khalsa Avenue ground offers the most stunning of backdrops with the imposing Sikh Temple and has a small seated area with three sides having hard standing and the other roped off. Apart from the backdrop they were humble surroundings but for the football-starved it was a veritable feast.