Croydon Athletic 7, Ashford Town 0. Ryman Division One South. 15th of August 2009.

Croydon Athletic 7 Ashford Town 0
from Your Milton Keynes Correspondent

Occasionally, I am asked why I do it – referring to driving for miles to watch Ashford Town play football, and then writing a lengthy report on proceedings. Well, the first part is easy to explain, as it comes through my Mother’s milk. The second bit, I think, is something to do with documenting an account of a day in the life of a non-league footy supporter, as a means of “selling” the experience to those not fortunate enough to be “one of us”. Well, I have to say that today’s report is as close to being a litany of misery as I’ve ever written.

It’s not particularly due to the scoreline, or the team’s performance. I can live with witnessing a good shellacking. We knew that the team would not be much more than a shadow of last year’s team at its best, and the current squad has been fairly hastily pulled together, and hurriedly prepared on the basis of just six pre-season friendlies. Besides, with so much doubt hanging over the very future of the Club over the Summer, I’m just grateful that I’ve a team to support at all. I also wasn’t particularly fazed at crawling along in a whole succession of traffic jams for four and a half hours, as I don’t get stressed in traffic. No, what really got me down today was the fact that, after all that time and effort, I actually missed the first half ! I hate that.

This particular day in the life of a non-league football fan began at 8.35am, with a check on the internet of the condition of the roads today – a hold up South of J11 of the M1, long delays on the Heathrow stretch of the M25, and the A23 closed at Croydon. Apart from that, it was all clear ! So, the cunning plan was to go via the Dartford Crossing, then through Bromley, approaching the Keith Tuckey Stadium from the East. Unfortunately, this was to no avail, and …… well, to cut a long story short, it soon became clear that we weren’t going to make it.

It was 3.15pm, whilst we were picking our way through the locale of Shirley, when the first text came through from Elaine, to say that we were already 1-0 down. This was not a complete surprise. Croydon Athletic is known to be currently the big-money club in our division. Last season the signs were there in black and amber, when that electronic scoreboard sprang up at one end of the ground – sticking out like Peter Crouch at a children’s party. The word during the close season has been that they have been throwing the cash around on players, in order to build up a formidable squad. Ashford Town, on the other hand, after a predictable exodus of the majority of last season’s First Team squad, will be heavily reliant this season on the eight that stayed behind: Paul Jones and Mark Lovell (when he recovers from his long-term knee injury) in attack, and the midfield quartet of Tony Browne, Ryan Briggs, Danny Lye and Mitchell Sherwood. The other two stalwarts to remain on the ship are, of course, Steve Lovell and Hugo Langton, the Manager and Assistant Manager – and I just wanted to mention that, as it would have been very easy for them to have walked away from the situation, weeks ago.

The big problem, then, for Steve and Hugo is the remainder of the squad, which, apart from Lee Hockey, who returns to us from Chatham Town, and Scott Chambers-Stevens, a goalkeeper who was recently with Margate, is made up of youngsters who have impressed for the Reserves and youth teams, and local players whose experience to date has been gained at a level that is well below (even) Ryman Division One standard. With the likelihood that the home side, on this occasion, would consist of several players with good experience of playing at Ryman Premier level or above, there was always going to be a good chance that there would be some lads in an Ashford shirt swimming well out of their depth, particularly in defence – and it wasn’t entirely unexpected when another text arrived, at about 3.40pm, to say that we had actually gone 4-0 down. By this time, we sort of sensed which way things were going to go !

We arrived at the ground to find the car park almost full, (in spite of the attendance being only 149), and the half-time music still blaring out on the tannoy – so we had at least arrived in time for the second half. Having said that, it would probably be an exaggeration to say that we made it in time for the match, as it was all over, as a contest, by this time. It’s also very difficult for me to make a judgment as to whether the outcome of the game was due to Croydon Athletic being very good, or Ashford Town being very poor, since, by the start of the second half, the home side was confidently knocking the ball around, and pulling the Ashford defence all over the place, in the manner that you’d expect of a side that was already 4-0 up. They did look an impressive side, however, and my gut feeling is that they’ll certainly be one of the teams challenging at the top this season.

So, what sort of a team did we have out there, today ? Well, three of The Six were missing: Mark Lovell is still, apparently, two or three weeks away from achieving match fitness, Danny Lye was serving a suspension for yellow cards picked up at the end of last season, and Tony Browne was absent due to work commitments. That left Paul Jones to lead the attack with Nick Smith, (a recruit from Erith & Belvedere, who has looked pretty lively in pre-season); the midfield was centred on Ryan Briggs, now the Club Captain, with Ross Morley, Joe Fuller and Mitch Sherwood alongside him. Lee Hockey, who invariably played in central defence during his previous spell with Ashford, was at right-back, with 20 year-old Ryan Norman, who has come up through the ranks at The Homelands, at left-back. We also had a new central defensive pairing: John Guest, who is true to his name, in the sense that he is on a couple of months’ loan from Dartford, and Bryan Pearce, a 28 year-old who has been around the Kent League track a few times.

On the bench we had the ever loyal, and ever patient, Darren Ibrahim, plus Jon Ralph, Dan Scorer, Carl Harrold and Kevin Swaisland.

There was just time to admire the beautiful, level, lush, green pitch here at the KT Stadium – which shows that the owners here haven’t only been spending their money on players and electronic gadgets – and to catch up with the salient facts about the first half. The score was up in bright, amber lights, telling us that it was “The Rams 4, Nuts n Bolts 0”. These goals were scored in the 11th, 19th, 30th and 39th minutes – and all by striker Gary Noel, (one of them a penalty), who had previously scored four goals in five pre-season games, having been signed from Harrow Borough, for whom he scored 18 goals in 22 matches (!!). There were also a couple of yellow cards for our boys – one for Nick Smith, in the 33rd minute, and one for Ross Morley, in the 37th minute.

Steve Lovell made one change during the half-time interval, replacing left-back Ryan Norman with a striker, in Kevin Swaisland – or “Rhino”, as he has soon become known. The fans have certainly very quickly taken to Rhino. He looks a rough, tough, rugged sort of character, and he’s quite possibly the first bearded Ashford Town player since right-back John Miller, in the seventies – but, arriving from Bearsted, of the Kent County League, I’m not yet totally convinced that he’s a footballer.

The substitution was, of course, primarily a tactical move by Steve Lovell – although some of the Ashford fans said that young Ryan Norman had been given a torrid time by the Croydon right-winger, during the first half – and he kept the 3-4-3 formation in place for the majority of the second half, (until we went down to nine men, of course; but more of that later).

Just as I was finishing scribbling down notes on the first half, I looked up to find that a home forward was clean through the Ashford defence again; the ball was squared to John Forrester, another striker making his debut for The Rams, having previously been with Leatherhead and the Metropolitan Police, and it was 5-0.

In the 50th minute, Steve Lovell replaced Bryan Pearce with Jon Ralph in the back three; Jon played on the left, with the experienced John Guest in the middle. A minute later, Ashford had their best chance of the second half. Kevin Swaisland got up well, to flick a long clearance on, with his head, into the path of Paul Jones. Suddenly, Jonah was clear of the home defence, but he rather summed up the mood of the moment when horribly slicing his side-footed effort. There were times when Paul looked pretty dejected out there, but one small crumb of comfort that might be taken from this hammering is that this was just one of several flashes of good interplay between the front three in the second half. (Having said that, Croydon Athletic goalie Ross Flitney wasn’t actually moved to change out of his slippers this afternoon).

Flitney was, however, beaten, in the 52nd minute. Ryan Briggs chipped in a free-kick, from just outside the area, after a foul on Paul Jones, and, after a brief goalmouth scramble, the ball was slotted into the net, but the lino was flagging for off-side.

In the overall scheme of things, however, this was a fairly isolated incident, and most of the action took place in the half of the field that Ashford were defending. Shortly after the disallowed Ashford goal, a deep cross came in from the Croydon right. With Scott Three Names seemingly floundering under the high ball, it was left to Lee Hockey, beyond the far post, to volley the ball behind for a corner. This was sent deep into the Ashford area, where a Croydon head rose above the beleaguered defence, which again looked very vulnerable as the ball was headed down into the six-yard box – and it was quite a relief when the referee blew up for a foul on Jon Ralph.

In the 58th minute, Croydon right-back Joe Howe went close with a long-range shot which went just high and wide of the goal, but Danny Waldren was a little wasteful, seconds later, with a wild shot that was well off target.

Just after the hour mark, Rams Manager Tim O’Shea – which sounds like an Irish shampoo – made his first substitution, throwing on Goma Lambu, in place of Chris O’Flaherty. A minute later, Scott Forrester, on the left, spread the ball wide to Tomiwa Bolarinwa, a product of the Croydon Athletic youth set-up, who was deep inside the Ashford half, on the right. This quick, flowing move soon had the visitors’ defence on the stretch, and it looked like being 6-0 as Bolarinwa pulled the ball back to Danny Waldren, but the former Skipper blasted the ball wide.

Steve Lovell almost seemed to have begun to treat the game as being part of pre-season, when he made yet another substitution, replacing Joe Fuller with Dan Scorer, in the 63rd minute. This change was made in the usual way, with one of the Ashford bench holding up a couple of plastic number boards, but the difference in the financial situation, not to mention the attitude, of the two Clubs was epitomised when Tim O’Shea made his next substitution, in the 70th minute, using a Premiership-style electronic number board. (Croydon actually missed a trick – they might have paid Andy D’Urso, the ref who stitched us up with those two late penalties against Fulham, to hold the board up for them, if they really wanted to rub it in !). Anyway, the important information conveyed by the gadgetry was the fact that Chris Piper had replaced Karl Murray.

Athletic, playing in an all-maroon strip, with grey flashes, this season, were soon pulling the Ashford defence around once again, in the 72nd minute, and with what seemed to be their favourite ploy of playing a long, diagonal ball to Tom Bolarinwa, on the right. He cut inside Dan Scorer, who had tracked back to cover, and then, when it seemed like a left-footed cross might be on its way, he let go with a shot with the outside of his right boot, which glanced off the face of the crossbar. Two minutes later, there was a further threat from the right, when a cross found short-arse Goma Lambu, just beyond the far post, but, unsurprisingly, the sub rather got underneath his header at goal, and the ball looped over the bar. O’Shea then made his final substitution, replacing Scott Forrester with Ben Godfrey, probably so that Forrester could get a decent ovation from the crowd, after his first appearance at the KT.

It was two of the substitutes who combined to score Croydon’s sixth goal, in the 76th minute. This time the danger came from the left, with Goma Lambu in possession, close to the Ashford by-line. Lambu cut inside Lee Hockey, with a dummied cross that Lee swallowed, hook, line & sinker, leaving him locked in a “splits” position. Lambu now had all the time in the world in which to pick out Ben Godfrey with a cross, and Godfrey rose, virtually unchallenged, and comfortably nodded the ball down, inside the near post.

Apparently, there’s an old Indian proverb which says that, just because you have typhoid and malaria, and your wife’s having it off with your neighbour, it doesn’t mean that your house won’t burn down; (“It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum”, circa 1974). Well, so it proved for Steve Lovell, in the 79th minute, when Dan Scorer went down with a freak injury. Jon Ralph threaded a ball through to him, inside the Croydon right-back, and Dan seemed to simply twist his ankle, going down, in obvious pain, with nobody near him. With Ashford Physio Dave Minnis absent today, it was the home team’s Physio who ran across the pitch to Dan’s aid. After just seconds of diagnosis, he was making those hand signals which indicate that the stricken player’s afternoon is over, and that he should be replaced immediately. Lovell’s problem, of course, was that all of the substitutes had been used.

So we were down to ten men – correction – nine men, as I then noticed that Mitchell Sherwood was off the field, sitting on the bench, obviously nursing an injury of some kind. The formation, for connoisseurs of that sort of thing, was now 3-3-2, with Nick Smith dropping back into midfield, on the right. Now, with the scoreboard reading 6-0, the game really WAS over as a contest.

But The Rams weren’t finished yet. In the 88th minute, with Dan Scorer having hopped away to the dressing room with ice packed around his left ankle, Tom Bolarinwa was put through in the inside-right channel. He was faced by Jon Ralph, just inside the Ashford penalty area, but, disappointingly for those of us that have heard such good things about Ralph’s performances for the Reserves, Bolarinwa went past his man rather too easily, and stabbed the ball past Chambers-Stevens, to leave Gary Noel with a simple tap-in from about six inches. It was Noel’s FIFTH goal of the game, but the home team’s congratulations, quite rightly, went to Bolarinwa, who had looked very impressive, in the short time that I was out of the car today.

So it was 7-0 – and we should have known better than to play away games in Norwich City’s colours !

Cruellest blow of the day was the decision by the referee to add no less than five minutes of injury time at the end of the game – and the home side had chances to add to their total. In the 91st minute, a cross from that man Bolarinwa was met by Ben Godfrey, arriving in the penalty area, but the recruit from Charlton Athletic’s youth team headed wide. Then, in the 93rd minute, Danny Waldren sent in a long, raking cross, from the right, which Gary Noel met with an ambitious volley. If he had connected properly with this, and the ball had flown into the net, it would have been the Roy of the Rovers way of completing a double-hat-trick - but the Law of Probabilities prevailed, and the ball flew high and wide.

So the Ashford Town IX held out, and the rout ceased at 7-0. Not that a defeat at the KT Stadium is anything new – this is the fifth successive season that I’ve written a report on our visit here, and we’ve lost all five games, by an aggregate of 18-2 !

The lads deserved credit for sticking to their guns out there, as there was never much evidence of heads dropping, but the scoreline was probably a fairly accurate reflection of the difference in the ability of the two teams. With Croydon Athletic now on top of the table, and Ashford Town rock bottom (not for the first time), the obvious question is that of whether either side is likely to stay in that position. I’d like to see how Croydon get on against the better sides in our division, before making a judgment as to their championship credentials, but they looked impressive to me, and the players they’ve brought in over the Summer have obvious pedigree. I wouldn’t back against them at this stage, and I wouldn’t bet against Gary Noel being the leading scorer in the division, either.

It’s more difficult to assess Ashford’s prospects, as this will probably turn out to be our most difficult game of the season, and many of our youngsters will be more comfortable playing against more manageable opposition. How we get on at home to Merstham next Wednesday will tell us a bit more about where we stand for the season. It’s probably a little early to be speaking in terms of relegation, as there are several fairly weak teams in the division this year, and we should pick up enough points against them to be safe – but the official line about this season being all about “consolidation” might be just a euphemistic way of referring to “survival”.

Man of the Match
(to go towards the Milton Keynes Bowl)
….. will be a rollover !