Brenchley away is one of those games no one looks forward to. The pitch is terrible and the inbreeding in that part of the country is rife and seems to make the natives a bit more aggressive than your average Tonbridge League player.
With Rob Gardiner and new boy Mitch Cowan still on the injured list (with hurty knee and sore foot respectively) the manager recalled club skipper Junior Slade to the side, also Chris Piper, Hobbit and Bago all returned to the squad.
It was a hot day, not ideal for the players but it brought the crowds out, another great showing from the B&A faithful, good to see the hound pitch side again.
We started the game well, not exactly playing flowing football but we kept the ball in their half and were rewarded before long. Good work down the right hand side from Merv and a nice early ball into the box caused problems and Hobbit came close to scoring before the ball rebounded to Gozzy who tucked it away. Not long after that he was at it again this time with a lovely strike on the volley flying into the top corner. 2-0
Unfortunately after this the team fell apart, the football disappeared and the players began to argue with each other. If it wasn’t for Gozzy and Gandhi we could have been going in at half time 3-2 down. As is happened we were still in front at the break, 2-1. Some sloppy defending and a failure to play to the whistle let the inbread’s back into the game.
After a bad tempered half time with some heated exchanges we got some wise words from club coach and stand in manager Pat Lawrence. They didn’t work. 5 minutes later it was 2-2. A free kick routine from the training ground left the B&A back line red faced. After the inbreads shouted out exactly what they were going to do we all just stood there and watched them do it!! I’m not quite sure who was using the team brain cell at this point!
This goal seemed to have the desired effect and we decided as a team we were not losing today. We also realised Bago was playing and had been hanging around on the left flank all day begging for one of the other dumb arses in white to pass him the ball. He started to run their right back all over the place causing them problems. It was his pin point cross that set up Zinger’s goal to put us back in front, and again big Zinger didn’t disappoint the fans with his trade mark celebration, this time with the Hobbit tightly tucked under his arm.
Minutes later Gozzy sprung the offside trap and when maybe he could have shot for glory he instead rolled the ball into the path of his bum chum Hobbit who tucked the ball safely into he onion bag. 4-2.
Bayley, who was going about his business quietly, keeping the middle tight and winning everything in the air had to come off with a groin injury, Piper came on and ran well upfront but when given a sight of goal completely shanked his effort high and wide.
James Edwards replaced Zinger at the back and did a sterling job winning all his tackles and throwing in the blocks when needed.
Late on we let Brenchley back in when Junior was perceived by the ref to have pushed one of the inbreads in the back and awarded them a pen. Nice Guy guessed right and was close to seeing justice being done but the power took it into the net.
Not a pretty game and there are definitely some issues to address but a good 3points away from home.
It all kicked off in the showers afterwards with Zinger needlessly battering Adam in an unprovoked attack. Witness’s said it was similar to the Joey Barton assault on Dabo. There will be a full Tonbridge FA investigation into the incident which left Harrison with a nasty bruise on his left arm.
