Old Tonbridgians 3 - 1 Old Reptonians

The OTs hosted Old Reptonians last Saturday, the sun was out and the team arrived in high spirits. The win was crucial to have any chance of staying in the first division. Repton were one place ahead with five games to go. The OTs had put out their strongest league team for a while and started the game very much in the driving seat. Repton were under pressure and had not touched the ball before a Rhys Evans corner landed at Cook’s feet inside the six yard box, Cook hit it instinctively but straight at the keeper. Tonbridge continued to dominate and enjoyed huge amounts of possession, passing the ball comfortably across the back from wing-back to wing back and then unleashing the wide midfielders down the flanks with balls over the top. One such move let to a corner on the left after JT had driven his way to the by-line. Atkinson took the corner and floated it to the far post where JT glanced his header precisely into the net past the keeper’s left hand. 1-0 up after 20 minute and Repton had not even looked like testing Bugge in goal. Seymour and Binnie worked tirelessly down the right side to get Cook and Tennant in on goal. The two forwards were back to their best and terrorizing a quiet Repton defence with their intelligent movement. Tonbridge strove for another before half time with Lockwood’s left footed shot hitting the post after a sumptuous move but the score line remained at 1-0 after 45 minutes.

With Repton having so few chances in the first half; we were confident that another goal would put it beyond their reach but Dye and Hill had to remain in control after their perfect first half. The OTs got back to business at the beginning of the second half with a similar game plan – stretch Repton to and fro and then attack through JT and Binnie. The second goal came down the right, back into the centre midfield, Lockwood spread the ball out to Binnie, then in to Tennant’s feet, he had time to turn and run at the defence, and his left foot strike was intercepted by Cook’s backside and the ricochet hit the back of the net. 2-0 after 50 minutes. Tonbridge continued to boss the game for the next 20 minutes, with Lockwood striking over the bar and Cook hitting the right upright after beating the keeper all ends up. Tennant and Binnie came off to make way for the Taylorson brothers, with Mark getting stuck into his tackles straight away, winning the ball off his opposite number and setting up attack. Pete was winning flick-on headers and sprinting about making a nuisance of himself and putting Repton’s defence under pressure, forcing them to make mistakes.

For the third goal Repton's central midfielder spread a ball out to Lockwood on the inside left channel, he turned and threaded a superb ball through for Cook to run onto; he picked up the ball first and brushed off the defender before bearing down on goal and poking the ball past the advancing keeper into the roof of the Repton net. 3-0 after 75 minutes. It seemed that the OTs then began to run out of steam, this fatigue was perhaps coupled with complacency and Tonbridge ceased to stick to the game-plan, we lost the ball in dangerous areas and despite winning 3-0, bickering broke out all over the pitch. Repton adopted a route one approach, but Dye and Hill were always there to head the ball away. However; Repton managed to get the ball into the net after a lapse in communication, the striker fired the ball at goal and Bugge’s parry was tapped in.

All in all, a very important win for the OTs and no one could deny that Tonbridge deserved it for the first 75 minutes. However; we will have to work on our fitness for the Arthur Dunn semifinal. It will be crucial that we do not hand over impetus to Old Kings Wimbledon like we did on Saturday. Repton now sit 2 points ahead with 1 game in hand, this season is not over for us, we can get ourselves out of the relegation zone, but we need to be committed to playing on Saturdays. We have an exciting few weeks ahead of us. Personally I really do think that we can leapfrog Repton. There is no way that it should be us going down this season – but we got ourselves into this and it is up to us to get out of it. If we get results for the remaining four games we will stay up.