An utterly frustrating afternoon for City saw them fall to a single goal defeat against Forest Hill Park at the Ladywell Arena.
It was one of those games where frankly neither side deserved to win. Scrappy and bitty at best, it was devoid of virtually any meaningful goal-mouth action and with half the time wasted chasing after the ball running away down the surrounding athletics track!
If the idea is to speed up the game and crack down on all the time lost from it, then that particular directive has clearly not yet reached this particular set of officials’ inboxes!
With this being the first of three games in eight days, City shuffled the pack with their selection but they got off to another poor start conceding what turned out to be the only goal of the game in the fifth minute. A not particularly threatening attack down the inside-right channel saw the ball popped through the City defence and with all eyes expecting an offside flag, Gavin Tomlin got on the end of it and lofted it on past City keeper Tom Benham for 0-1 .
That was almost as good or as bad as the game got, depending on which side you were supporting. There was a lot of possession based play with plenty of passes but with neither side able to make any real progress towards the goal.
Jake McCarthy struck a low shot that took a nick off a home defender and went out for a corner on fifteen minutes, while Ryan Cooper got on the end of a high ball but, off balance and at full stretch, could only fire over the bar from the angle.
City were then indebted to their keeper Benham for a wonder save on thirty-six minutes when, faced with a FHP striker at point blank range, he somehow got enough of a blocking save in to deflect the ball up and off the crossbar when City looked certain to fall further behind.
City finished the half the stronger as Leo Dodds had a fierce shot blocked, Teddy Nelson saw a firm header just drift an inch or two away from the far post while in stoppage time, Rob Lawrence ran onto an inviting aerial ball but volleyed over.
And that was about it for the first-half although with so much time taken up retrieving the ball as it ran away towards the long jump pit, or disappeared behind the hammer event net, it meant the less than two minutes added on at the end of the half was extremely difficult to fathom. Still people will say it was the same for both sides but with their goal advantage and little insistence or intervention from the officials to speed things up or allow for the time lost, it was clearly to FHP’s advantage, even at this early stage to just let the minutes (and the ball) dwindle away!
The second-half failed to be any brighter. McCarthy fired well over for City while Gafaar Karim struck a really poor shot wide of the City goal – sorry but these really were the highlights despite several searches of my note-book!
City had a couple of well-placed free-kicks and from one Luka Radojevic saw his header comfortably saved but that wasn’t until the eighty-seventh minute while FHP’s Jamie Obianigwe lashed the ball hopelessly over the City bar in injury time.
Again, it has to be said, that with all the substitutions, a two-minute (timed) injury break and the relentless pursuits of the runaway ball, the four minutes added at the end, once again seemed wholly inadequate.
Not a game that will live long in the memory and City must hope for better when they face Staplehurst Monarchs at Hartsdown Park on Tuesday.
Final score: Canterbury City 0 Forest Hill Park 1
City: Tom Benham, Luka Radojevic, Nico Cotton, Jake McCarthy, Teddy Nelson (Danny Keyte), Ryan Cooper, Rob Lawrence (Ben Binder), Luke Illsley, George Adams (Harry Maher), Leo Dodds, Tim Marapara (Harry O’Donnell).
Unused Sub: Dan Binder