On with the match report in a minute. First off, a guide to what you’ll need to do if you ever try parking in Folkestone town centre:
- Try and use the parking machines 18 times until your spirit is broken
- Download the Apcoa Connect app
- Enter your mother’s maiden name, the middle name of your first gerbil and the DNA sequence of a Liverpudlian called Ian
- Enter them again because you didn’t get them right the first time
- Enter the long number from your payment card, the expiry date (in Latin) and the three numbers on the back of the bus that passed ten minutes ago
- Enter the four-digit security number that will be sent to you by SMS the Tuesday after next
- Apologise to the constable for the disturbance of the peace in a public car park
Thankfully, winning a football match in Folkestone is easier than parking there… but only just. We had to wait until the 92nd minute of play to grab the winner in this one, but it was emphatically worth the wait.
By this point, the Rooks were playing against ten men, the ref having finally tired of Folkestone kicking lumps out of our players every time they got within tickling distance. Scott Heard got an early squeeze of the Radox with six minutes to go, having picked up his second yellow for a lunge at Gondoh.
The Rooks were laying siege to the Folkestone goal, having spent most of the second half on the back foot. Deon Moore’s 36th minute opener had nudged the Rooks ahead in a tight game. The Bastard bore down on goal and everyone was expecting him to shoot, but he squared it magnificently for Moore, who slid in at the back post with a defender, and between them they got enough contact to loop it over the keeper and into the net.
Everyone knew we’d be up against it in the second half, not least because we were playing on a pitch that you’d be worried about grazing cattle on. I’ve seen less undulation on crazy golf courses. The groundsman must still be on furlough.
The Rooks defended stoutly, with cult hero Archie Tamplin once again turning in a no-nonsense performance at right-back, and Brad Pritchard defying both the ageing process and physics by seemingly being everywhere in midfield, and normally with the ball at his feet.
We held out until the 73rd minute, when a poor headed clearance was quickly fed out to Heard on the right-hand side. His shot took a lethal deflection off Will Salmon and evaded Carey.
It looked like being a not very useful point until Heard’s red card put the wind back in the Rooks’ sails. A succession of set-pieces were squandered, before the Rooks got one last chance from a Jayden Davis corner. It was another scruffy corner, truth be told, but it found Deon Moore with his back to goal. He turned and planted a low shot past the keeper, prompting an almighty bundle of middle-aged limbs with a helping of Youth Wing in the away end. It. Was. Glorious.
So, that’s three wins on the bounce and suddenly the play-offs are back within sniffing distance. Not least because one of the play-off dwellers, Canvey Island, are in town on Tuesday night, for what will be a massive game.
Before that, there’s the small matter of the women in an FA Cup quarter-final. What a time to be alive. UNLIKE YOUR SODDING PARKING MACHINES, FOLKESTONE.
(Sorry.)
Lewes: Carey, Tamplin, Salmon, Champion, Mundle-Smith, Young, Olukoga, Pritchard, Coleman De-Graft, Moore, Taylor
Subs: Huckle, Hall, Murrell-Williamson, Davis, Gondoh
Supporters Club man of the match: Brad Pritchard, who must be growing genetically-modified super sprouts in that vegetable patch of his, because the little fella was everywhere, despite being older than the Youth Wing combined.