When Erith and Belvedere hosted Chatham Town in February, they crashed to their heaviest ever home league defeat in front of 72 spectators.

This game was much closer with nearly double the attendance and the hosts pushing the bookies favourites to win the league all the way. Although the Chats edged it in the end, the Deres’ manager, Del Oldfield, was far from disheartened.

“My heart hasn’t slowed down yet, that’s for sure.” said Oldfield. “We knew we were up against a very tough experienced opposition. I think what we’ve shown today, taking away the obvious quality of Chatham, they had big spells of the game, I know that. I think what we showed today is that we’re not just going to roll over and have our tummy tickled. We’re going to dig in. We’re going to give it our best shot.

“I’ve got nothing negative to say. This is a cracking group of young lads. They’re all here for nothing. They’re here because they want to be here and we’ll just get better. I’m taking nothing away from Chatham because they are a quality side and they had big spells of the game but I think we deserved at least a point out of the game today personally.”

A few decisions went against the Deres, especially one at two-two. Oldfield said “I thought, if I’m being honest, that we should have had the lead at three-two when we pulled one back but that’s football. I’m not going to knock their (the officials) decisions. It’s a difficult job at the end of the day.”

Looking back to the eight-one defeat seven months earlier, Oldfield purred “It’s a massive improvement. It goes down to not just me. It goes down to my management staff and the boys that are here. We’ve got a twenty-four man squad who all know that they’re going to have to do their bit as we go through (the season).

“We’re still learning and growing as a club.” he continued. “I don’t want expectations to be too high because we need to be grounded and realistic but I think that we showed today that we’ll be in there somewhere.”

Four days earlier, the Deres opened their F.A. Cup campaign with victory on the road and Oldfield enthused “That was a fantastic win. It was a little bit like today. I thought we rode our luck a bit, in the week. They’re a good side, Kennington.

“They played the game their way and they do it very well. We saved a penalty and rode our luck a little bit but sometimes you need a little luck. We didn’t get that luck today.”