ARCHIVE: Ashford Town v Leatherhead. Ryman League Division 1 South. 2004-5 season.

Ashford Town   2       Leatherhead      1

from Your Milton Keynes Correspondent

This is Match Report No.40 from Your Milton Keynes Correspondent, and the very first from The Homelands. In fact, it’s only my third visit to the Club’s Kingsnorth home – on the previous two occasions I’ve seen us lose 0-5 to Woking and 1-4 to AFC Wimbledon, so the omens were not good !  I did, though, approach the game with the reassuring thought that Ashford’s home performances have been far better than their shocking away form. We’ve actually LOST 18 of our 22 away games this season, whilst the only teams to have beaten us in our last 14 matches at The Homelands have been Walton & Hersham and AFC Wimbledon, which are probably the two best teams in the division.

It’s actually this home form which offers the best chance of escaping a calamitous relegation to the Kent League. Looking at the league table, with Croydon surely “gone for all money”, we’re three points behind Newport IoW, with a game in hand, which is not insurmountable; in other words, we’re plenty close enough to safety if we’re good enough !  Leatherhead, on the other hand, are in 8^th position in the league, so have every chance of making the promotion play-offs.

I remember covering the corresponding game, at Leatherhead. This was the fourth game of the season, and the first since Tim Thorogood did “a Barry Fry” and stepped down from the Manager’s job. Tim was also absent today – on a trip to Las Vegas – and, with the Orsbournes also enjoying a well-deserved break in the sun, that left de Sade as Chief Cook and bottle-washer. In fact, with his son, Owen, indisposed with an injured hand, there was a chance that the Chief Executive would need to take over as Team Physio, but the Leatherhead Physio kindly did the honours. Tim Thorogood’s Assistant, John Cumberbatch, took charge of the team.

In terms of playing personnel, Ashford were a bit light on the left side, with Leon Dussard now returned to Southall, and Paul O’Brien and the injured Tom Evans here today as spectators. That meant a reshuffle in defence, with Marc Cumberbatch reverting to left-back and Chris Holmes coming in to partner Tony Ritrovato in the centre. Tom Adlington wore the No.2 shirt, and has now featured in all bar four of Ashford’s games this season, starting in almost all of them. His presence at right-back meant that Barry Gardner could be pushed forward to the right side of midfield – which is surely his best position – with Solomon Henry wide on the left, and captain Matt Bower and Joffy Thorogood the central midfield partnership. Joby Thorogood was once again preferred as Paul Jones’s strike partner, with Shaun Bradshaw and Lee Blackman warming the bench. John Whitehouse was in goal, so was one of five survivors of the game at Leatherhead (along with Adlington, Bower, Gardner, Jones and Joby Thorogood – sub Lee Blackman actually started the game back in August).

The game got under way five or ten minutes late, due to the delights of Kent’s traffic – this made the referee and one of the linesmen late. Your MKC arrived in plenty of time, in spite of the best efforts of Operation Stack. Haven’t you heard of roundabouts in Kent ? 

Before the kick-off there was a tribute to the late Alan Lancaster – a minute’s immaculately observed silence, in honour of the former Secretary of Ashford Town, who’d been a stalwart of the Club for some 50 years.

It would be fair to say that Ashford had the better of the first 20 minutes, looking the livelier of the two sides, with plenty of snappy challenges, but without really threatening to score. There was a chance as early as the fifth minute, from a Joby Thorogood corner. Joby seemed to scuff the kick along the ground, across the penalty area – Tony Ritrovato toe-poked the ball towards goal, but it was easily cleared off the line by a Leatherhead defender. In the eleventh minute, Barry Gardner, who heroically scored the winning goal in the 89^th minute in the previous home game, ran onto a through-ball on the right flank. Although he was a long way from goal, he ambitiously tried a shot; whilst Tommy Dunn in the Tanners’ goal comfortably got behind the ball, he failed to collect it cleanly, and it might have rebounded to an Ashford striker on another day. Four minutes later, a Tommy Ad cross was deflected away for another corner. Joby again delivered a low, bobbling cross – prompting speculation that this were a deliberate ploy, rather than poor technique with a dead ball – and this time the ball went harmlessly through the crowd of players.

The first chance for Leatherhead – who played in their change strip of dark blue shirts, white shorts and dark blue socks (so looked a bit like Scotland !) – came after 22 minutes, when Tony Ritrovato conceded a free-kick just outside the area. The Tanners players have clearly been watching television, as they executed a free-kick routine that is often seen at higher levels of the game. A member of the attacking side mingles with the defensive wall, or stands in front of it, or stands on the end. Just as the ball is struck, that player makes a hole in the wall by blatantly pushing or pulling one of the defensive “bricks”. The referee never ever sees this obvious ploy. All the taker of the free-kick has to do is to aim for the part of the wall where the hole is obviously going to be made. The free-kick went entirely to script, but John Whitehouse did well to save Steve Sargent’s low shot, diving to his left.

There was a nasty moment in the 33^rd minute. Tom Adlington was in the process of effecting a clearance when Leatherhead’s No.3 Dean Carpenter came in hard, and ended Tommy’s match. The Tanners’ defender wasn’t particularly late, but, according to most people at the ground, he went in with both feet, so was probably lucky not to get more than a yellow card.

Ashford were still down to ten men when Leatherface took the lead, and they did so with their first real attempt at goal from open play. The ball was spread wide to the right, and a first-time cross was met by Paul Wetherall, whose lobbed volley sailed over John Whitehouse’s head, and high into the net. It was a well-taken goal, which gave the ‘keeper no chance.

It was three minutes after this goal that John Cumberbatch restored the team numerically, putting on Shaun Bradshaw in place of Tom Adlington, who had already limped painfully off to the dressing-room. Bradshaw joined Jonah up front, meaning that Joby dropped back to the right side of midfield – shades of the Terry Fenwick era ! – and Barry Gardner went into the right back position. This was a bit of a blow, as, although Barry is well accustomed to playing in this position, it reduced our attacking options – Barry had looked our best player, by a mile, up to this point.

Worse was to come. In the 43^rd minute, Joffy pulled up lame after typically chasing a lost cause, with the ball going out of play. There was no challenge involved, so presumably this was an ankle twist or something. Joff couldn’t continue, so was replaced by Eddie Achoko, who hasn’t started a game since the pathetic 0-3 defeat at Molesey, in a one-for-one swap.

Ashford managed to make it to half-time without further loss of personnel, which was just as well, as our playing resources are starting to look pretty thin now. We were also a little unfortunate to go into the break a goal down, but, given that we’d failed to create a clear-cut chance during a scrappy first 45 minutes, the situation looked pretty grim.

There were few chances for either side at the start of the second half, and in the 57^th minute it appeared that our human resources might be further depleted, when ‘keeper John Whitehouse went down injured. John had come out of his area to clear a ball, and neatly side-stepped Marc Charles-Smith, who scored Leatherhead’s winner last August. Charles-Smith caught the ‘keeper late, and was booked. The match actually got quite tetchy – something that John Cumberbatch seemed to encourage, since he was constantly winding up the Leatherhead players – and Tony Ritrovato also collected a yellow card five minutes later. This was totally unnecessary, since he had just been awarded a free-kick, and got yellowed for a little bit of retaliation afterwards. (The crime, of course, was that he let the ref see him retaliate !).

During this catalogue of injuries, substitutions, bickering and bookings, Ashford showed few signs of making an impact on the Tanners’ 1-0 lead, but there was evidence of a training-ground free-kick routine in the 64^th minute. Joby and Barry Gardner stood over the ball; Joby ran over the ball; Bazza passed it short to Eddie Achoko; Eddie chipped the ball into the area, into Joby’s path; Joby got on the end of this, but the Leatherhead defence managed to get the ball behind, for a corner. No real end-product on this occasion, but this was a well-worked little move, and it proved that our boys work on things during the week.

Shortly after this, in the 67^th minute, Joby was substituted, being replaced by Lee Blackman, and it took Lee, playing as the wider of three strikers, only four minutes to make an impact. Marc Cumberbatch played a looping diagonal pass over the Leatherhead defence, to Blackman on the right, who was not picked up by the visitors. Lee dinked the ball over the advancing goal-keeper; a Leatherhead defender, running back to his own goal, made a despairing attempt to clear the ball, but succeeded only in smashing the ball into his own net. The stand-in PA announcer immediately credited the goal to Lee Blackman, so I take it that the ball had already crossed the line.

Incredibly, we were level, but it was far too early for the very sparse Bank Holiday crowd to start feeling that a point was secure – given that Ashford have conceded two or more goals in 27 of our 39 games this season. And, sure enough, almost immediately Leatherhead had a free-kick, right on the edge of the Ashford penalty area. On this occasion there was no breaching of the Ashford wall, as the free-kick was hammered into Matt Bower’s thigh. The visitors showed their intention to regain the lead with a substitution on 77 minutes, when Wes Harrison, who looked to be an attacking right-sided midfielder, replaced Danny Lavender.

There were few chances for either side for the next ten minutes or so, with Ashford being confined to a long-range shot from skipper Matt Bower – soon to serve a suspension for his sending-off at Bashley – in the 78^th minute, and Leatherhead having a more clear-cut chance in the 83^rd, when Charles-Smith sliced wide when having a good sight of goal in the penalty area. In between these two incidents, visiting captain Mark Harper got himself booked for a high, but otherwise harmless, challenge on Shaun Bradshaw.

In the 88^th minute, Paul Jones picked the ball up in a fairly deep position for him, and carried it cross-field; he laid the ball off to Matt Bower, who played a good through-ball to Lee Blackman, on the right. Blackman looked miles off-side, but, to the surprise of many, there was no flag – there was also no defence, as Lee carried the ball into the Leatherhead box, close to the by-line. Shaun Bradshaw was in the area, with no defender anywhere near him. It was the simplest thing in the world for Blackman to pull the ball back for Bradshaw to tap in, so that it seemed odds-on that they’d make a mess of it. Not on this occasion !  Shaun made sure, side-footing the ball firmly into the net.

I was hoping to be able to report that Ashford held on for the remaining two or three minutes, to seal a priceless three points, and then announce how Newport had got on against Walton & Hersham, but this game just seemed to go on and on. There was also plenty of incident before Mr Basten (and both sets of supporters sounded like they were addressing him by his surname !) finally blew his whistle. With 91 minutes on my watch, the hero of the hour, Lee Blackman, ran towards his own by-line, and, in an attempt to clear the ball for a throw-in, succeeeded only in putting it behind for a corner. There was a delay before the kick could be taken, as Chris Holmes, who showed a few classy touches today, was down injured. Leatherhead were in no mood for a lengthy hold-up, but had the advantage of supplying the only physio for the game – therefore, instead of a prolonged session of physiotherapy on the pitch, Holmes was carried off, at the double, by a combination of Leatherhead’s captain, Mark Harper, and the physio, and deposited off the field of play. The corner was swung over, but Tony Ritrovato rose high to head clear, to the cheers of the few remaining Ashford faithful.

In the 95^th minute, Lee Blackman was tackled late, and a free-kick was awarded. Surely the time bought with the taking of this kick would be sufficient to see us home !  Barry Gardner took a pop from long range, and Tommy Dunn made a good save, diving low and conceding a corner. There was only one thing to do with this – keep it in the corner, and run down the clock !  This wasn’t accomplished terribly well, and the ball was soon back at the other end, with John Whitehouse having to come out to intercept a through-ball, on the right edge of his area. As he rose to collect the ball, he obviously realised that he was right at the limit of his territory, so sensibly released the ball in mid-air. In the referee’s view, he failed to do so in time, and a free-kick was awarded for hand-ball. The referee had a long chat with John, and it seemed that there might have been the prospect of the goal-keeper being sent off in what was by now the 98^th minute !  In the end, it was a yellow card that was shown, but, more importantly, there was a free-kick in a dangerous position to deal with for the Ashford defence. The ball was chipped into the Ashford area, but was then headed over the bar, for a goal-kick.

There were still painful seconds to endure before the ref finally blew up to end the match. It had been a scrappy game, and there was nothing pretty, or particularly convincing, about this victory, but nobody associated with Ashford Town will worry about that. Although there weren’t many points gained for “artistic impression”, it certainly appeared that the Ashford players wanted the three points more than the visitors did – and at this stage of the season, and given that we’ve a relegation scrap on our hands, that’s probably good news for all Ashford fans. Lee Blackman was named as Man of the Match, having scored one and made one during the 25 minutes or so that he was on the pitch – with Shaun Bradshaw getting the winner, that adds more fuel to the debate as to who should partner Paul Jones up front for Ashford.

Newport’s 0-1 defeat at Walton & Hersham means that Ashford Town move out of the bottom two for the first time since November – we’re ahead of Newport on goal difference, and with a game in hand. A note of caution, however: I reckon that we’ve much the harder run-in of the two teams, so there’s plenty of work to do yet. Nevertheless, it hasn’t been a bad day, with a notable treble of victories: Ashford Town, England and then Italy !