Canterbury City 1-3 Knaphill - I really think that's a big opportunity missed, says gutted Canterbury City joint-boss Ben Smith

Canterbury City 1 – 3 Knaphill
Location	Homelands Stadium, Ashford Road, Kingsnorth, Ashford, Kent TN26 1NJ
Kickoff	12/12/2015 15:00

CANTERBURY CITY  1-3  KNAPHILL
The FA Vase Third Round
Saturday 12^th December 2015
Stephen McCartney reports from Homelands Stadium

CANTERBURY CITY joint-manager Ben Smith admits his club have missed an opportunity after they were knocked out of The FA Vase in the last 64.

Both Canterbury City and Knaphill were making their Third Round debut, at a windy Homelands Stadium in Ashford.

Knaphill, based in Woking, Surrey, have made Canterbury City their third Kentish scalp, having defeated Cray Valley (5-4, after extra time) and 2013 runners-up Tunbridge Wells 3-0 in the previous two rounds.

An uninspiring first half came to life when Knaphill edged in front just before the break through Jack Mazzone, who impressed behind lone striker Charlie Postance.

Canterbury City – in eighth-place in the Southern Counties East Football League table on 23 points from 16 games - equalised through Dave Pilcher’s ninth goal of the season, before Knaphill regained the lead through substitute Danny Taylor’s sublime chip.

Knaphill – in tenth-place in the Cherry Red Combined Counties League Premier Division on 26 points from 17 games - played the final 18 minutes with ten-men after central defender Matt Morris was red-carded for using his elbow as he challenged Pilcher, but diminutive striker Taylor drilled home his second to send Keith Hill’s side into the last 32 and dreaming of making their first appearance at Wembley Stadium.

“It’s a sickener really. I don’t think there was a lot between the two sides,” said Smith afterwards.

“It was a calamity of errors throughout the first goal, which swings the game in their ascendancy, when really it was a 50-50 game.

“Some of my lads didn’t perform today as they have done.  In the end with the errors we’ve put in ourselves we deserved to go out of the competition.”

Tommy Sampson, who won The FA Vase when he was Deal Town’s manager back in 2000, was special guest and he gave his winners medal to Smith before the game to inspire his players.

“The players have got a lot of belief from the cup competition and it gives them a bit of a taste of what can happen in the future,” said Smith.

“It’s kind of put the club back on the map when we’ve been in the wilderness, no  one’s wanted to come down here, no one’s wanted to be interested in us. We’re back in the limelight.  We’ve got a legend like Tommy Sampson here today watching us. I said to the players, last year Tommy Sampson would come down here? No chance! So it’s build the profile of the club.

“However, I think, I really think that’s a big missed opportunity, so obviously gutted.”

Knaphill created the first opening inside the opening nine minutes.

Left-back Timmy Taylor delivered a free-kick into the Canterbury City penalty area from the right, the home side had chances to clear the ball, but Postance hooked the ball back into the box and Morris sent his back-header over the bar from eight-yards.

Canterbury City should have opened the scoring with 14 minutes on the clock.

Pilcher swung in a free-kick from just outside the left-hand corner of the Knaphill penalty area, the ball was dropped by visiting keeper Richard Shelley at his near post and Rob Lawrence stabbed the ball just past the foot of the near post.

The game then turned into an uninspiring physical midfield battle, which was narrowly shaded by Knaphill.

“They were hungry, they were lively in there. They got in our faces and I think we wanted too many touches first half,” admitted Smith.

Connor Close put the ball into the Canterbury box, which was knocked down by Postance and the ball ran free to Mazzone, who drilled his cross across the face of goal, narrowly just evading an unmarked Postance in the middle.

Timmy Taylow swung in a corner from the left which was looped over the bar from a tight angle at the near post by target-man Postance.

Canterbury City’s best opening arrived on the half-hour mark.

Pilcher was given time and space to float over a deep cross from the left towards the unmarked Chevan Xavier, who powered his header across keeper Shelley towards the far corner, but the keeper dived to his right to pluck the ball out of the air to deny the winger.

Smith said: “Great ball in. We had supporting runners in the middle. I thought he could’ve headed it back across goal for someone to get on the end of it.  It was a bit of a tame effort really.”

Shelley made a comfortable save to deny Pilcher scoring with a speculative bouncing right-footed drive from 30-yards from the other side of the pitch only 42 seconds later.

Canterbury City were awarded a free-kick on the half-way line, which was going to be taken by Ben Gorham, but his central defensive partner Ollie Lee took over.

Lee clipped his free-kick over the Knaphill back four, sailing towards the top left-hand corner of the net, but a back-peddling Shelley watched the ball drop down over his right shoulder and palm the ball up before catching the ball before it dropped in over the line.

“He’s not short of confidence, Ollie, he’s seen him off the line,” added Smith.

“As soon as he did it I thought ‘oh my god, what is he doing?;

“It turned out to be a good bit of opportunist luck because their keeper sort of saves it and holds on to it.”

But as the game was destined for a stalemate at the interval, Canterbury City goalkeeper Shannon Harris gifted Knaphill the lead.

Kersley was given time and space to hit a speculative lob towards goal from 35-yards, which forced Harris to back-peddle and tipping the ball over the ball over was his best option.

However, he managed to claw the ball down from the air and presented the ball straight to Mazzone, who showed more desire than the flat-footed Canterbury defence to place his shot into the bottom left-hand corner from 10-yards.

“It’s one of those, you never really expect them to shoot from there and suddenly he does and the wind was holding it up, he was back tracking,” recalled Smith.

“He should save that! He should tip it over, claw it to the side. What he has done he’s popped it straight down and then look at my back four! I’m fuming that they’re ball watching, no-one’s followed it in, their lad’s followed it in and he’s had a tap-in.”

Sensing a fragile goalkeeper, Mazzone then hit a left-footed shot on the turn from 35-yards, which bounced into the keeper’s hands.

Canterbury City created the last chance of the half when left-winger Pilcher cut inside to stroke his right-footed angled drive straight at Shelley.

When asked what he told his troops during the interval, Smith said: “I just said to them to keep going. There’s nothing between the two sides. We haven’t really particularly played well.

“We’ve had real good belief in the squad this year and when we’ve been behind in games we’ve had belief that we could go on and win the game so get back to what we’re good at, that’s passing the football and have no regrets.

“I have to say for 25 minutes of that second half it was more like the Canterbury City that we’ve developed into.”

The start of the second half, however, was flat as a pancake as neither side created a tempo on the artificial pitch.

Canterbury City fashioned an opening following a well-worked corner routine from the left.

Rob Lawrence took it short to Pilcher, who played the ball into Dan Lawrence’s feet inside the box, whose dink played in Rob Lawrence, whose shot deflected into the foot of the side netting.

But Canterbury City clawed themselves back into the game with a 58^th minute equaliser.

Central midfielder Sam Staunton won the ball with a well-timed sliding tackle in the middle of the park before Dan Lawrence played a sublime through ball through the heart of Knaphill’s defence.

Pilcher still had a lot to do as he had two Knaphill played swarming around him, but he drilled his right-footed shot into the bottom right-hand corner from 18-yards.

“We’ve signed Dave from Sittingbourne this year, he wasn’t getting a lot of joy out there,” said Smith.

“He always seems to be, even if he’s drifting in and out of a game, he’ll always pop up with a goal. He’s got great technical ability and he showed it there with a great finish.”

But Knaphill grew in confidence and they missed a great opportunity just 210 seconds later.

Man-of-the-match Mazzone put Kersley in behind the Canterbury defence and dragged his right-footed shot across Harris and past the far post from 15-yards.

Smith admitted: “We switched off in an incident in the corner. Their lad gone through Ollie Lee, who’s cleared it. I think we just switched off from there. 

“We were really getting on top of the game and for some reason out of the blue we switched off and they’ve gone through one-on-one. I thought at that point there you go, that’s a game changer. They conceded that, surely we’ll go and score and it didn’t work out like that!”

Knaphill took the lead for the second time after 72 minutes, a goal that Smith felt should have been ruled out for offside.

Mazzone hooked pass released substitute Danny Taylor in behind Bosio and Lee and with Harris coming off his line the striker’s delicious right-footed chip from 20-yards sailed over the keeper and dipped down into the back of an empty net.

Smith said of the two-goal hero, “They brought on the small striker, the nippy striker up and to be honest with you I was thinking of making a change and putting one of our centre halves with a bit of pace on and we didn’t and that’s come back and haunted me really.

“But it’s one of those, you never really change your back four unless you have to.

“I certainly think that was offside! It’s easy to say that because we’ve just lost the game and that was the vital moment but yes he looked miles offside.

“Both centre halves have gone towards the target man, he’s flicked it over the top and he’s five yards in space there. Yes, it’s got to be offside but you win some, you lose some.”

Canterbury City were given a lifeline when referee Barry Holderness pulled out a red card after Morris caught Pilcher with his elbow as the Canterbury City winger made progress down the right channel.

“You could see the elbow from the other side of the pitch, you could see he’s come across him and smashed him with the elbow,” claimed Smith.

“How they could say that wasn’t an elbow is beyond me!”

There were plenty of bodies inside the Knappers’ penalty area when Matt Martin’s driven shot was saved by Shelley, diving low to his right, from the resulting free-kick.

But Knaphill showed character to recover from that blow by winning the game in the 76^th minute.

Timmy Taylor was given acres of time and space down the left to float over a cross towards the near post for Danny Taylor to nip in to drill his shot into the bottom left-hand corner.

“That’s a real sucker punch,” admitted Smith.

“We had a chance, Matt Martin, the ball’s bounced around in their box, he’s smashed it, it could have gone anywhere. It goes to the keeper’s feet, he saves it, they cleared it and then, bang, goal and that’s what you get isn’t it? So yes, it’s a sucker really.

“On another day we score, it goes back to two-all and we’re in the hat still.

Knaphill right-back Idris Taiwo bulldozed his way forward before his shot was saved comfortably by Harris in the Canterbury City goal.

However, it was now too late for Canterbury City to mount a serious fight-back, but they created a couple of late chances.

Bosio whipped in a deep cross towards the far post but an unmarked Pilcher planted his header straight into Shelley’s hands with six minutes left.

Smith said: ”I thought he could’ve taken a touch. We talk about his technical ability for the goal, he could’ve taken that down there and he’s clean through.

“I think it’s panic stations at 3-1, isn’t it? Desperately, desperately trying to get back into the game, he’s probably thought he was desperate to get a shot off.”

Martin released Sam Hallett through on goal but Shelley rushed off his line to smother the shot from the Canterbury substitute on the edge of his penalty area.

Smith added: “It’s one of those days, he’s come through and the keeper, anything we’ve had has been straight at him.

“He’s only just come on as sub so probably hasn’t got his bearings in the game. Could he gone around him? Could he chip it over him? He’s gone straight at him!”

A big kick from Shelley put Knappers substitute Arafat Kabuye through on goal and with only Harris to beat his right-footed chip was caught by the keeper.

There was a melee in front of the dug-outs and Canterbury City lost concentration as referee Mr Holderness allowed play to continue and Kabuye skipped past Harris outside the penalty area down the right channel, cut into the penalty area and his driven shot was headed off the line by Lee.

“I didn’t actually see that because it was all kicking off literally straight in front of the dug-out,” admitted Smith.

Smith claimed: “Their lad swings a punch and then our players bite. The referee just hasn’t got a clue what’s going on at that point in the game.

“They’re 3-1 up, there’s no need to swing a punch when somebody’s coming in for a tackle but it’s done them well today, it remains to be seen if that tactic serves them well in the future, we’ll see.”

Ashford United are the sole Kent team left in The FA Vase after Danny Lye’s side came away from league rivals Lordswood with a 5-1 win at Martyn Grove today.

Smith wishes Canterbury City’s landlords well in the last 32 on 9 January.

“I’m pleased for Ashford, they’ve had a lot of troubles and they’ve been a great bunch for us, great landlords so I hope they do really well. Hopefully, that takes their mind of our Boxing Day game.

“It would’ve been nice to have drawn them, wouldn’t it? But as I’ve said all along, anything we do this season is a bonus. It’s building to come this far in our first season together with a much smaller budget, there’s probably two or three that haven’t got bigger budgets than us in the league.

“I think real credit to the players we’ve got and next season we’ll give it another go.”

Canterbury City have raised £3,300 in prize money after beating Ringmer (1-0), Tooting & Mitcham Wanderers (2-0), Cove (5-0) and Erith & Belvedere (3-2) during their longest FA Vase campaign.

Smith added: “I won’t see any of that!”  

“It’s great to give something back to the club. Before I came here the board was slagged off something rotten with previous managers whenever they’ve left but I’ve got to be honest they’ve been nothing other than brilliant for me.

“I ask them for anything, they back me. They’ve got complete faith in me to run the football side of things, they don’t interfere. They’ve given me a season with no pressure so you can’t ask for a lot more than that really.

“I have to make sure we repay them and today would’ve been a nice one to really say thanks to them by giving them that extra win but it wasn’t to be.”

Canterbury City: Shannon Harris, Chris Webber, Jamie Bosio, Sam Staunton (Sam Hallett 82), Ben Gorham, Ollie Lee, Dave Pilcher, Dan Lawrence, Rob Lawrence (Adam Woollcott 77), Matt Martin, Chevan Xavier.
Subs: Connor Partridge, Charlie Hallett

Goal: Dave Pilcher  58

Booked: Chevan Xavier 13, Sam Staunton 26

Knaphill: Richard Shelley, Idris Taiwo, Timmy Taylor, Matt Morris, Jamie Doble, Connor Close, Josh Watkins, Rob Kersley, Charlie Postance, Jack Mazzone (Arafat Kabuye 88), Alex Lumley (Josh Coke 71).
Subs: Emmanuel Oloyede, Andy Rowe

Goals: Jack Mazzone 44, Danny Taylor 70, 76

Booked: Charlie Postance 21

Sent Off: Matt Morris 72

Attendance: 72
Referee: Mr Barry Holderness (Wickford, Essex)
Assistants: Mr Jamie Pope (Hockley, Essex) & Mr David Hunter (Basildon, Essex)