On a sunny afternoon at the BuildKent Stadium, the players of Folkestone Invicta and Worthing served up an enthralling and entertaining game which befitted the two sides’ position of being amongst the favourites for this season’s Pitching In Isthmian League Premier Division title. This was the clubs’ third successive first day of the season meeting and in the other two each team had won once, so it was always going to be a tight encounter.
With only Aaran Simpson and Scott Heard missing, Invicta, for once, had almost a full squad to pick from and the Management Team’s decision to go for the experience of Ian Draycott rather than the youthful enthusiasm of Tyler Sterling paid dividends as he turned in a ‘Man of the Match’ performance with two goals to move within one of Jimmy Dryden’s all-time goalscoring record for Invicta since the club got Senior Status, as he moved to 140.
The early exchanges saw both sides looking to gain the upper hand, but gradually Invicta started taking charge of the game and Draycott had the first chance as he saw his shot from the edge of the area saved by Worthing goalkeeper, Harrison Male. David Smith then did well to win the ball and he found Ade Yusuff whose dangerous low cross was just out of reach of the incoming Alfie Paxman, and the defender’s clearance bounced back off Paxman for a goal kick. Yusuff was almost on the scoresheet himself shortly after as Ryan Johnson played the ball to him and he drove forward before forcing a good save by Male. Whilst Invicta were in the ascendancy at the time, Worthing gave a warning that they were still a threat as following Dean Cox’s corner, their skipper Aarran Racine nodded wide of Tim Robert’s right-hand post.
Ronnie Dolan, making a welcome return in midfield, then had the next chance, as having originally played the ball to Paxman, who in turn passed it to Smith, he received the ball back on the edge of the area, but again Male was equal to the task, as he got down well to save his shot. In the 23rd minute Invicta had a real chance to take the lead as Yusuff was fouled by Alfie Young as he moved onto Paxman’s low cross which earned Invicta a penalty and the defender a yellow card. As everyone knows, our record from the penalty spot isn’t great and this time Smith stepped up, but his poorly struck penalty was easily parried away by Male.
That miss didn’t seem to faze Invicta as we kept pushing forward, Draycott fed Yusuff whose excellent low cross found Dolan at the far post and just as it looked as if the midfielder was going to put us ahead, Will Seagar made a fantastic blocking tackle to deny him a goal. At this stage, Worthing’s chances were sporadic, but they came close when Roberts’ header didn’t go out of play and with the goalkeeper out of position, Ollie Pearce tried a speculative lob from the touchline, but fortunately it curled wide of the far post. Just after the half-hour mark, our opponents suffered a blow when the injured Seagar had to be replaced by Marvin Armstrong and he added much-needed impetus to their midfield, as he played a clever one-two with Shaq Gwengwe which put him through the centre of the Invicta defence, but he then delayed his shot which allowed Matt Newman to get back and make a possible goal-saving tackle.
The rest of the half continued in a similar vein with Invicta pressing the Worthing defence for most of the time, but to the surprise of everyone in the ground, the sides went into the break with a 0-0 score line. Invicta really should have been ahead as apart from the penalty we had a number of decent chances, whilst Worthing, uncharacteristically, were forced to play a long ball game with too many missed placed passes which left their front players feeding off scraps as Invicta’s pressing game kept them at a distance.
Neither team made any changes at half-time, and the feeling was that Worthing would produce more in the second half and perhaps we had missed our chance. Initially, this appeared to be the case as our opponents made a good start to the second half and within two minutes of the restart were awarded a penalty of their own when Johnson brought down Jasper Pattenden, who had made a lively start to the second half. Pearce stepped up to take the kick, and this time it was Roberts who denied his opponent making a good save diving to his left and parrying the ball clear. However, our reprieve was short lived, when five minutes later, our opponents took the lead. Pattenden was fouled by Callum Davies just outside the ‘D’ and from the resultant free kick, Pearce made up for his penalty miss, curling the ball into Roberts’ right-hand corner to give ‘The Mackerel Men’ the lead.
Worthing had made a much-improved start to the second half, and we had to be careful that the game didn’t slip from our grasp, but we made the quick reply to going behind that we needed. In the 56th minute, Yusuff made another good run and sent in a dangerous low cross which was deflected away for a corner from which Draycott cleverly flicked home Dolan’s kick into the far corner of the net giving Male no chance. Whilst Worthing had another decent chance, which saw Racine again head wide, this time from a cross from Reece Myles-Meekums, we were now back in the ascendancy and on sixty-seven minutes, Draycott scored his and our second. Draycott himself started the move by taking a quick free kick to Yusuff who played in Paxman, his cross was retrieved by Jordan Wright who played the ball into the path of Draycott and he fired home an unstoppable shot into the top right-hand corner from the edge of the area.
In response to this, Worthing made two substitutions with Dean Cox and Gwengwe being replaced by Thomas Chalaye and Dayshonne Golding, but the pattern of the game continued and within four minutes of the second goal, Invicta had added a third, when Yusuff played Smith through and although his first shot was parried by Male as he bore down on goal he followed up and tapped it home. With a two-goal advantage, Invicta made two substitutions with around fifteen minutes to go as firstly Kieron McCann replaced Dolan and then Tyler Sterling came on for Smith, who had again proved what a powerful asset he is up front. We continued to press and Yusuff saw his cross deflected away from the incoming attackers, before the two Invicta substitutes combined with Sterling setting up McCann whose shot was saved by Male diving low to his right.
There was just time for Joel Colbran to pick up Worthing’s second yellow card for a foul on Yusuff which saw him replaced by Micheal Everitt. From the free kick, Sterling shot wide from around thirty-five yards. Yusuff had been outstanding all afternoon with his harrying of the Worthing defence and although he didn’t score himself his presence was enough to unsettle our opponents defence and, on another day, he would have been ‘Man of the Match’, but it was difficult to deny Draycott as he not only had a good game himself but scored two excellent goals.
Overall, it was an excellent performance by Invicta as we took our pre-season form into the first League game and forced such a well-fancied side such in Worthing on the back-foot for the majority of the game, which afterwards saw Worthing Manager Adam Hinshelwood admit they were fortunate to only lose 3-1.
After the game, by way of a change, I spoke to Club Coach Micheal Everitt, firstly we discussed the game in general, Mev said: “I thought the players were excellent today and everyone followed the game plan, we dealt well with Worthing, kept them at a distance and I don’t think they had any real chances from open play, although we were frustrated to concede the goal in the manner we did. “We played with a lot of quality today and Ian Draycott typified how we wanted to play, he held the ball up well and then defended when we needed to get behind the ball, he fully deserved his two goals and the ‘Man of the Match’ Award.” “We did a lot of our defending from the front with Ade Yussuf also having an excellent game putting pressure on the Worthing defence with his closing down. “We ask a lot of our players at times, but they all did exactly what was asked today, and you saw the result.”
We then moved onto the ‘elephant in the room’ and our penalty record, he added: “After training on Tuesday, David Smith and Alfie Paxman both practised penalties and Smithy blasted every one into the net, giving Tim [Roberts] no chance, so he was the obvious choice to take the kick and I was expecting him to score, however that wasn’t the case, but I hope he’ll step up and take the next one. “As you saw it didn’t affect his game and we were delighted when he got the third goal.”
Looking ahead, I asked whether this result had put down a marker for the season, he replied: “It’s too early for that, yes, it was a good performance today and we played well, but there were still things we could improve on, although I won’t deny it was a great result today against a very good Worthing side where we showed a lot of character in coming back from 1-0 down having missed a penalty, but that has now gone and our efforts will now be centred on preparing for next Saturday’s game at Corinthian-Casuals. “I must admit it was nice to get back to playing ‘proper’ games of football rather than endless friendlies, although they are of course a necessity in preparing for the League games. “Finally, I’d just like to thank our supporters for turning out in numbers today and hopefully you enjoyed what you saw and will be back for our next home game.”
After the game, Brad Southern assisted by Riley, awarded the ‘Man of the Match’ trophy to Ian Draycott. They presented it on behalf of Roger Arnold, who has supported the club for many years, and we would like to thank him for his continued sponsorship and support.
Folkestone Invicta; Tim Roberts, Josh Vincent, Jordan Wright, Matt Newman, Callum Davies (Capt), Ryan Johnson, Ian Draycott, Ronnie Dolan (Kieron McCann, 74 mins), David Smith (Tyler Sterling, 76 mins), Ade Yusuff (Micheal Everitt, 90 mins) & Alfie Paxman (Unused substitutes: Finn O’Mara & Connor Collins).
Goalscorers: Ian Draycott (56 & 67 mins) & David Smith (71 mins).
Worthing: Harrison Male, Joel Colbran, Will Seagar (Marvin Armstrong, 33 mins), Aarran Racine (Capt), Alfie Young, Dean Cox (Thomas Chalaye, 69 mins), Danny Barker, Shaq Gwengwe (Dayshonne Golding, 69 mins), Ollie Pearce, Reece Myles-Meekums, Jasper Pattenden (Unused substitutes: Pat Webber & Mo Diallo).
Goalscorer: Ollie Pearce (52 mins).
Referee: Michael Robertson-Tant
Assistant Referees: George Lowe & Ryan Chantrill-Smith.
Attendance: An excellent 836, thanks to everyone who came to the BuildKent Stadium to support their respective team, hopefully you enjoyed the game.