This was a rare game where the “home” supporters had a trickier journey than the away ones. The only person to endure a more difficult trip was The Lip’s Marcel Barrington, who turned up at Ashford United in Kent believing Ks ground-shared there. Give it a season, Marcel, and you may yet be right…
Onto the game, and it soon became clear Ks had not come out to play football so much as foul their way into the next round. Braiden Hall was the first victim and had to be subbed off after just 13 minutes. Then, on the half-hour, the referee effectively gave them the green light to carry on. Dickson went in for a tackle and was slightly late, but the referee appeared to allow play to continue; then, as the ball fell to Mark, he received a heavy challenge with a high elbow. Despite the blood now flowing from his forehead, the referee pulled it back to the original foul and only awarded Dickson the yellow.
Combined with dramatic yelping whenever they were touched, Ks had the better of the first half and hit the crossbar twice, but we survived and went in to regroup at 0-0.
The second half saw a Leatherhead side more prepared for the dirty tactics, and we took the lead. The referee awarded us a free kick on the edge of the box — having ignored what looked like a penalty in a similar area moments earlier — and Price smashed it into the top corner after the ball had bounced around the area for a while. 1-0.
Then it all kicked off. Similar to the incident last weekend, a Ks player came to challenge Price but met him instead with two raised hands and a forceful shove to the ground. A melee erupted and, in the middle of it, Ks’ No. 8 threw a punch at Kennett. One assistant saw it and the referee produced a red card. The other assistant then told the referee that Kennett had done something in the build-up and so he was shown a yellow. That booking meant that, when Kennett was later involved in another foul, the entire Ks bench ran onto the pitch trying to get him sent off.
Strangely, going 1-0 down finally persuaded Ks to start playing football and, despite being a man down, they continued to play out from the back in a style that would have made Russell Martin proud. Most of the time the ball was picked off and we could attack again, but there were moments when they looked dangerous.
There was still time for yet more controversy as both teams ended up seeing red. Hogan had something brewing with their No. 16 and, in a challenge for the ball in the left corner, was robustly shoved off it by the bigger player. As the ball moved on, Hogan chased and gave his adversary a reminder that he was still there, and the defender reacted. He got Nathan in a neck lock, as if he were Hulk Hogan, and wrestled him to the ground. You could still see the marks on his neck five minutes later. Another bout of handbags followed, and the Ks ‘keeper sprinted to the halfway line, got involved with Cam, went down theatrically, and so our defender also saw red.
It was now nine v ten, and Ks won a free kick on the edge of the box in stoppage time, but the effort sailed high and wide. The final whistle blew, another fight broke out, and a Ks child allegedly ran off with one of our footballs. All of that somehow distracted from the one thing that mattered: we are through to the next round.
Onto Tuesday, when we play Three Bridges, who refreshingly play in Three Bridges.