Corinthian (1) 3 30,72,80
Tonbridge Angels (4) 7 Trialist17 7 Trialist5 23 Trialist14 35 Shields 44 Santos 68 Shomotun 70 Trialist18 86 Estimated attendance: 80
Admission: £3
Mileage: 44/44
The opening pre-season friendly brought a comfortable win for the Angels at Gay Dawn Farm, home of SCEFL Premier Division Corinthian. On a day when the weather eased its way through all four seasons, Jay Saunders mixed a sprinkling of trialists, Mr and Mrs Trialist will be justly proud with 10 of their offspring featuring, alongside the majority of the first team squad with two completely different teams each half.
The grass pitch at Corinthian is always well kept and looked resplendent as Tonbridge kicked down the slope in the first period. Sean Shields had an early chance that was narrowly wide before Trialist17 performed a smart turn in the box to fire home and give the Angels a seventh minute lead.
The lead was doubled on 23 minutes when, following a corner, Ronny Nelson’s effort took a couple of deflections, the final one off Trialist5, to wrong foot the home goalkeeper.
The weather played its part in Corinthian’s opening goal after half-an-hour, but this should not diminish the effort of the Corinthian player whose 40 yard lob caught the wind, but also the trialist goalkeeper off his line to nestle into the net.
The two goal advantage was restored five minutes later when Trialist14’s clever dummy opened up the space for him to slot home with a good finish.
The final act of the first half ended with Shields collecting the ball on the left side of the box to fire into the far corner.
Corinthian opened the second half on the front foot and last season’s Angels Under-18 goalkeeper, Toby Edwards made a fine save to open his half between the sticks.
As the storm clouds gathered from behind Edwards’ goal, on 68 minutes, Mo Dabre fed the ball to Jeremy Santos, who moved the ball onto his left foot to consummately curl a low shot into the bottom corner.
As the heaven’s opened and the referee taking a long look at his watch with 20 minutes to go, Fumnaya Shomotun’s cross-cum-shot found the net with the wind taking the assist.
Corinthian made the scoreline respectable with two goals to take the score to 6-3 before Trialist18 capitalised on a poor back pass to add the Angels’ seventh.
Jay Saunders commented after the game: "It’s always difficult with the first one, blowing a few cobwebs off, people getting a different run-in to what we do in training with loads of positives, load of negatives and what you would expect from the first one.”
