A fantastic performance at the Langton Green Fiesta. We finished runners-up in our group. If we had beaten Ridgewaye, having had most of the chances, we would have won the group and qualified for the round-robin final.
We were without our regular goalkeeper, but otherwise we had a strong squad and the goalkeeping was shared between five players.
We looked to be in command from the kick-off in our first match against Langton Green, and we got the goal our play deserved early in the second half, when Chris Newble found Chris Newbury with a quickly-taken corner and he found the net.
Our second match saw us facing Ridgewaye, who had beaten us twice in the league in matches that we dominated. Nevertheless we couldn't believe it when the same thing happened here. We almost scored in the first minute when a shot from Chris Newbury hit the post and Ross McCarter stumbled over the ball and knocked it wide of the goal. We created five or six other great chances, but Ridgewaye got the vital goal when stand-in goalkeeper Greg Byrne failed to hold a shot and a Ridgewaye player was able to tap into an empty net.
The third match was against Pembury and we had a did deep as Pembury probably had the best of the play, so 0-0 was a good result.
The fourth match looked like the toughest on paper: East Grinstead Town, who beat us 14-1 in the first round of the cup. Luckily we weren't playing on paper and we took the game to them from the start, and were rewarded when Ross McCarter beat the keeper. Unfortunately we let East Grinstead back into the match when the defenders were slow to react after East Grinstead had hit the post. We continued to play the better football and looked the more likely winners, but the game ended 1-1.
We were able to take revenge on Jarvis Brook, who beat us 2-0 in our last game at Crowborough with a reverse result. The goals came from Chris Newble and Greg Byrne, who finally got his first goal of the season.
We then faced Paddock Wood without a break, but this suited us as we were playing well and full of confidence. We produced another convincing 2-0 win, with goals from Chris Newbury, again from a quick Chris Newble corner, and Chris Newble after a nice demonstration of dribbling.
Although we knew by this stage we couldn't qualify, we produced another good performance in our final match against Wateringbury Boys. We totally dominated, but the goal took a while to arrive. Chris Newbury got his third of the day, at the end of a good move involving Ben Spring and Ross McCarter. Martin Hill had to get down well to make a save towards the end to deny Wateringbury an equaliser.
There were some great performances, but we looked like a team, and it was certainly the best performance in a tournament in the five year that I've been managing Tonbridge teams. Dan Tester was chosen as man-of-the-match, because he didn't let the side down and accepted when he couldn't be brought on. |