Saturday 24th September 2011 // Ryman League Division One South // Att: 185 // Report by Darren Lovell
The Stones stretched their run of successive wins to seven after this hard fought victory over Chipstead.
The “hard fought” description has rarely been more accurate or fitting for a victory following the amazing 32nd minute incident involving The Chips’ striker Billy Harding.
The home side have a physical and verbal toughness about them that will make them formidable opponents for some younger or inexperienced teams but Maidstone United’s mixture of experience and their own physical toughness meant that a major tool in Chipstead’s armoury was negated.
Number 10 Harding is by reputation a hard working striker who chases the ball down, closes down space on his opponents and generally gets into the ear of his marker with verbal tenacity. These are his strong suits. He is a fighter. Sadly, this weekend his ”fight” came across in the most literal and disturbing manner possible.
Referee Vince Penfold had taken the striker to one side to lecture him about a stray elbow that narrowly missed Stones centre back Nick Reeves’ face in an aerial challenge. After the end of the lecture Harding jogged past Reeves on the half way line to take up a position to defend the free kick awarded against him but inexplicably he then did a rapid about turn and threw a very big right handed punch at The Stones defender. Somehow Reeves managed to duck out of the way of the punch, as he did with the subsequent second haymaker.
It was hardly surprising that this prompted a mass confrontation between most of the players on the pitch. In fairness to most of the players, their involvement was purely to prevent Harding from hitting anybody else in his vicinity as the Chipstead man provided a text book case of “losing it big time.” Players from the home side attempted to restrain their loose cannon as the blue shirted visitors stepped in between Reeves and his attacker to attempt to prevent any further blows being rained down.
Eventually Harding was escorted from the field after receiving a red card from Mr Penfold (surely the easiest red card decision he will ever have to make in his refereeing career!) Even as he went off Harding was displaying a violent persona that was extremely worrying.
Most observers agreed that this incident was of the type only seen on Sunday morning park pitches and to the credit of the Chipstead officials in the stand, even before Harding had left the field they had stated that Harding would never be playing another game for the Surrey club.
The football up until this point had been largely disjointed and disappointing, as during the first ten minutes of the game there had been two long injury stoppages for blood injuries to Chips players, which meant that the game had very little shape or flow to it. A 4th minute shot from Ellis Green had been blocked and a long kick from Charlie Mitten in goal had found Shaun Welford who latched onto the ball and fired a rasping drive narrowly wide of goal in the 21st minute.
The Harding incident unsurprisingly took a while to get over for both sides and it wasn’t until the 41st minute that the next action of note occurred. Green crossed from the left and Welford headed over keeper Martin Grant only to see his effort hit the underside of the cross bar. The rebound fell to Reeves but he could only direct his header straight into the arms of the grateful Chipstead keeper.
Two yellow cards followed in quick succession with Alex Wilks making a heavy challenge on Tom Mills, whilst Stones’ Sam Bewick committed a similar offence less than 60 seconds later. Bewick atoned for his misdemeanour just four minutes after this though when he profited from some calamitous home defending. Cody Best took a throw-in back to his keeper but Baff Addae closed down his space quickly and caused Grant to mis-control the ball and hurry his clearance. The clearance was then poorly headed by central defender Matt York and the ball fell into space centrally in front of goal about 25 yards out. Bewick needed no second invitation to volley the ball first time and his shot took a single bounce on its’ way into the empty net.
In the eighth minute of additional time in the first half Chipstead came very close to drawing level as Wilks took on and beat Mills on the right flank. He drilled in a low cross with pace across the face of the Maidstone goal but Jason Goodchild could not control his touch and the ball flew over the bar from close range.
The early part of the second half saw The Stones pushing on for a second goal and Bewick found himself breaking free from half way following a neat combination between Addae and Green. However, as the young midfielder prepared to strike York managed to get a toe in to divert the ball behind for a corner. Four minutes later Addae passed to Green who cut along the edge of the penalty area before seeing his 20 yard shot strike the inside of the right hand post with Grant well beaten. Welford then drew a great blocking save from Grant as he surged through from 40 yards and forced the keeper into a brave stop.
Chipstead were proving to be very resolute as Maidstone struggled to make use of their man advantage but with nine minutes remaining another chance came close to a goal. Alex Flisher’s corner was cleared to Bewick and he combined with player-manager Jay Saunders before delivering a delightful cross to the far post where Danny Lye connected with a strong header that narrowly went over the goal.
Chipstead had commendable amounts of reserves left as the game reached its’ latter stages. Graeme Andrews made a vital last ditch tackle on Kofi Quarty as he prepared to shoot and from the corner that followed Jordan Brown lofted a shot that dropped only inches th wrong side of the cross bar.
Substitute Alex Waugh and Welford combined very well on the break but Waugh’s strong near post shot was well saved by Grant and directly from the resultant corner, Flisher’s inswinging flag kick seemed to be heading into the net until Grant acrobatically tipped the ball over the top.
This was the last action before the final whistle as The Stones secured an ugly but invaluable three points.
Chipstead: -
Maidstone United: Sam Bewick 45+5.
Chipstead: Grant, Bedford, Hogg, York, Watkins, Wilks, Sweeney, Marshall, Goodchild, Harding, Brown. Subs: Pattams, Quarty, Thompson, Best, Webb.
Maidstone United: Charlie Mitten, Tommy Osbourne, Tom Mills, Nick Reeves, Graeme Andrews, Danny Lye, Ellis Green (Alex Waugh 62mins), Sam Bewick, Shaun Welford, Baff Addae (Jay Saunders 77mins), Alex Flisher. Subs not used: James Pinnock, Karl Knight, Jimmy Humphris.
- Matchday Photos from Steve Terrell
- Man of the Match Poll
- Interview with Jay Saunders
- Ryman League Division One South Table (as at 24/9/11)
