Enfield Town FC

Report

Enfield Town 1-3 Tonbridge Angels

Town Left Shellshocked by Angels Defeat
Report by Andrew Warshaw

Talk about clutching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Enfield Town somehow contrived to throw away three points on Saturday against the poorest team in the league on current form as we suffered a second defeat within four days to return to the drop zone.  What a difference a week makes.

With all the other teams around us failing to win, this will surely go down as the one that got away and a huge opportunity missed.

Suddenly, survival is no longer in our hands  as we again swopped places with Welling but it’s easy to forget we went on a six-game unbeaten run before the latest back-to-back setbacks.

With 12 games still to go it’s certainly still do-able though playing twice a week is clearly taking its toll on the players.

After the midweek mauling by Eastbourne, there was every sign of an immediate recovery during a first half in which we looked more than comfortable with Joe Wright welcomed back between the sticks.

Tonbridge had only won one in 10 coming into the game and looked there for the taking.

Anointed Chukwu, whose hold-up play deserved far more on the day, was quickly into the action,  first linking up with Billy Leonard, then flashing a cross across goal with no-one to convert.

Jack Bates  shot down the throat of Matthew Rowley before Town deservedly took the lead on 28  minutes. Chukwu was again involved, played through by Sam Youngs before unselfishly squaring for Hisham Kasimu to finish with a hardly graceful but decisive tap-in (pictured).

Town should have had a least two more before the interval, John Oyenuga finding the side netting instead of firing across the keeper after exchanging passes with Kasimu.

Rowley was then forced into a sprawling save to keep out a Youngs snapshot and it seemed like there would only be one winner.

H-T 1-0

There was always a chance, however, that we would pay for not putting the game to bed. And so it proved in a disastrous last 14 minutes.

The danger signs were there where Oyenuga  flung himself full length to block Gianluca Bossi’s goalbound drive while the visitors’ subs were beginning to make a big difference.

Had either Youngs or Kasimu been able to apply the finish to a Billy Leonard cross, we would surely have doubled our lead and relieved the pressure but they got in each other’s way and Tonbridge took full advantage.

Wright, making his second debut for us six years after his last spell, had been  virtually a first-half spectator yet now found himself picking the ball out of his net three times.

 On 76 minutes Ronny Nelson’s header from the latest in a series of otherwise ineffective long throws crept in beyond Joe’s flailing arm. Then within a minute Sean Shields burst through the centre of Town’s defence, with Adam Thompson for once left wanting, and finished with aplomb.

Out of nowhere in the blink of an eye, we were chasing the game and with virtually the last kick after six minutes of stoppage time we were hit on the break. Shields was again the architect, his deflected effort falling to Botti who stabbed the ball home.

The next couple of fixtures against Hornchurch and leaders Dorking have suddenly taken on an entirely different complexion in terms of the table and the return needed.

“We should be standing here with a win, not even a draw, it’s a complete joke and I’m totally baffled to be honest,” said a clearly crestfallen Gavin Macpherson.

“We needed to take some pressure off the backline by taking our chances and we didn’t. All of sudden we hand them the game. Having said that we should never have conceded three goals. This had to be a result for us and it wasn’t.”

Town: Wright; Benjamin (Brown 92), Hawkins, Thompson; Leonard, Youngs, Bates (Smith 87), Parcell, Oyenuga (Knight, 81); Chukwu, Kasimu (Hutchinson, 85