“I want to apologise to anyone who has spent their evening coming to watch that – they don’t deserve… people who pay, fans, all the people who at the club who work hard week in week out voluntary may I add – they don’t deserve that from the players!”

Chatham Town’s boss Kevin Watson damning description of his sides 1-1 draw with Erith and Belvedere on Tuesday night.

Far from happy, Watson went on, “We didn’t deserve to win that game – we were useless! We were complacent – I’ve told my players that Alan Hansen once said that you don’t win anything with kids, and I’m talking about their age, but that was an immature performance; there was no desire – and we got a point! Yet on Saturday we played a million times better at Harlow and didn’t get anything.

Considering his words carefully the Chats boss continued. “Ultimately its my fault,” he admitted, “as I’m accountable for performances, selections and the like but whilst the conditions were difficult and the pitch wasn’t very good at all, the players playing like that don’t deserve to play on better pitches than that. I’m being highly critical today and that doesn’t happen very often but I’m also being highly critical of myself tonight because that was poor, extremely poor! There were players out there who if they played anything like their potential should have been good enough to get a result tonight but they didn’t!

The game itself saw two goals; two loud home appeals for penalties and in truth long periods where the game meandered as both teams surrendered possession as though it was a hot potato which meant as a spectacle it was very poor fair indeed!

The visitors took the lead with their first attack on 13 minutes when Tyler Christian Law was allowed to run unopposed from the half way line before screaming the ball past a motionless Jack Bradshaw in the home goal from fully thirty yards. The move of the match – and there were precious few sadly – came seven minutes later when Alfie May and Lee Hales combined superbly on the edge of the box as the ball found its way through to Ade Youseff who drilled home the equaliser from the 18 yards.

The home side thought they’d earned a penalty shortly before half time when May tangled with Lawrence Collins with the assistant who was up with play and no more than five yards from the incident appeared to signal across his chest for the sport kick. Referee Saliy however – who was 20 yards off the play – didn’t agree and awarded a goal kick much to the obvious disgust of the home fans and players alike!

The home side were then indebted to keeper Bradshaw for preserving the point with a couple of fine saves – one with his legs from Ryan Flack and the second a full length finger tip save around his left post to deny Luke Tanner – and one extremely fortunate one just past the hour when he fumbled Flack’s drive which was straight at him and was relieved to see the ball bounce past the post.

The second loud shout for a penalty game deep into stoppage time with the biggest crunch of the night. The ball was loose on the edge of the Erith box, and with keeper Ashley Bourne and defender Danny Willis closing in, it seemed that Yuseff had just got to the ball first, yet as the three collided with a crunch that nearly woke residents in the cemetery next door, the referee again wasn’t interested and waved play on!

As Watson so critically admitted, this was one of those games that are consigned to the history book very quickly indeed and sadly forgotten about before you leave the car park!

CHATHAM TOWN – Jack Bradshaw, Taylor McDonagh (Kalvin Morath Gibbs 86), Liam Hickey (Ben Chapman 57), Brad Potter (James Alderman 71), Lewis Knight, Corey Holder, Lee Hales, Matt Solly, Ade Yusuff, Alfie May, Greg Benbow

Subs not used – Kevin Watson, Lee Kidman

ERITH & BELVEDERE – Ashley Bourne, Danny Dolan (Luis Rozan 75), Lawrence Collins, Paul Springett, Reys Boyle (Danny Willis), Jordan Clark, Ryan Palmer, Ryan Flack, Luke Tanner, Tyler Christian Law, George Savage (Marcus Cassius 68)

Subs not used – Jake McIntyre, Nelson Senkatuka

REFEREE – Mr O Saliy
ASSISTANTS – Mr P Cruise & Mr S Brown