Tonight’s fixture was the kind of game that in a sense whatever the outcome on the pitch, Angels supporters might be questioning its validity.

Win, and people would say well its only the league cup against Herne Bay and you should be winning that anyway, or lose, then the sense of gloom if not all out crisis around Longmead would persist.

That would perhaps explain the very low gate of 180 with people perhaps preferring to see whether Wales could take another massive step towards Russia next summer or maybe they might have taken the short journey to Culverden to see whether Tunbridge Wells could progress to the next round of the FA Cup and better what their more illustrious neighbours failed to do last Saturday.

It might have therefore come as a surprise to those who stayed away when the half time scorelines came through to hear that the Angels were beating Herne Bay 5-0. With both sides fielding changed teams from the weekend, it was the home side who perhaps had a point to prove to their supporters and their manager.

It was pretty much all one way traffic and Herne Bay could have felt slightly relieved that they were only five goals down at the break for if the truth be told the Angels missed a number of glaring opportunities. The pace of Alex Akrofi, the trickery of Dan Thompson, the creativity of Tom Beere and the industry of Tommy Whitnell were causing multiple problems to the Bay defence and their bemused ‘keeper.

Goals came for Thompson in the 25th and 42nd minutes, Beere penalty in the 32nd minute , George Beavan in the 34th minute and Akrofi in the 43rd minute. It was significant that all the scorers were finding the net for the first time this season!

If the visitors were to hope that the Angels might let up in the second half they were to be disappointed. The goals kept on coming with strikes from Alex Akrofi 50 minutes, Joe Turner 70 minutes, Nathan Elder 75 minutes and a brace from Andre McCollin on 81 and 90 minutes.

To their credit, Herne Bay showed more enterprise going forward during the second half and did manage to engineer a goal for themselves in the 78th minute through Tom Carlton but it was simply just the smallest of consolations.

The problem for the visitors was that every time the Angels went forward they looked as if they were would score and when you are able to substitute attack minded players with the likes of Elder, Turner and McCollin then life gets very difficult for tiring defenders.

Angels Assistant Manager Barry Moore asked after the game whether players had a point to prove following Saturday’s disappointment in the FA Cup said : “No, because we know how good our forwards are and know what they can do. They needed to score goals and that’s exactly what they did tonight with all the strikers getting on the scoresheet.”

Pictures supplied by Wesley Filtness.