Chatham Town 3-1 Dover Athletic - Chats shine in double win over Dover

CHATHAM TOWN 3-1 DOVER ATHLETIC
Saturday 19^th January 2008
Ryman League Division One South
John Crow reports from Maidstone Road

IN THE very week that Dover Athletic chairman Jim Parmenter announced that his club were about to "start handing out some hidings", they visited Chatham Town - the only team to have beaten them in Division One South of the Ryman League this season, back in October last.

Now Chatham are the only club to have done the "double" over Dover - as Steve Binks' patched-up team, with six reserve players in his 16-man squad, did it again in front of their own delirious supporters.

This was an incident-packed game at Maidstone Road as - with over 12 minutes of stoppage time having already been played - there was a partial floodlight failure, literally as the referee was about to blow for full-time, which brought the match to a slightly unsatisfactory conclusion.

That, however, cannot take away from the magnitude of 16th placed Chatham's feat.

The reason for all the extra time was an horrific incident involving Chatham goalkeeper John Whitehouse, which saw a red card for Dover skipper John Keister.

Whitehouse was later taken to hospital with severe facial injuries, sustained after he had saved the ball at the foot of his right post.

Against all pre-match predictions, it was the home side who opened the scoring in the ninth minute - a perfectly delivered cross from Shane Suter on the left picking out Craig Govey on the far post, whose header gave Dean Ruddy no chance much to the delight of the Chatham supporters in the biggest crowd at Maidstone Road since the visit of Maidstone United last season.

Dover, however, had clearly come for the win - as former Gillingham boss Andy Hessenthaler made his return to the Medway Towns in charge of his new team.

And it has to be said that they had much of the play, only to fall short time after time in the face of a rock-solid Chatham defence which was missing the presence of both Rob Goodger and Andy Larkin through suspension.

In their place, veteran Steve Best was ably partnered by James Smith who was making his Ryman League debut.

Three minutes after taking the lead, the Chats somehow weathered the storm with a goal line clearance while, after Hessenthaler had hit the post, a header from Craig Cloke struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced down before being hoofed to safety. Luckily for the Chats, this assistant referee was from Welling rather than Russia!

In amongst all the Dover pressure, however, Chatham might well have extended their lead in the 15th minute but for some spectacular work from Ruddy.

Darren Smith brought the ball up the left, before unleashing a breathtaking shot from some 22 yards out - which drew an equally stunning save as the American goalkeeper threw himself to his left, somehow getting a hand to the ball and keeping it out. He could parry the shot only as far as Govey, but this time his header didn’t bear fruit.

The first unsavoury incident of the game was in the 33rd minute, when Keister elbowed Suter in the face after he had played the ball.

Referee Mr. Harris had no hesitation in producing the yellow card, and the Chatham man nearly picked up a caution himself so vocal was he in his disbelief that the Dover man had been allowed to remain on the field.

The half ended with Dover still pressing strongly for the equaliser, only to be denied once again in the 41st minute - as Whitehouse got down well at the foot of the right post to save a powerful header from Jimmy Dryden.

Hessenthaler clearly took advantage of the half-time interval to fire up his players, and ten minutes after the interval they finally managed to pierce the Chatham defence.

Cloke was the scorer, getting on the end of a ball over from the right to send a powerful header through a crowd of players from the edge of the 18-yard box, which just eluded the reach of Whitehouse on it’s way into the top right hand corner of the goal.

One of the stars of the show for Chatham on the afternoon, was young Nathan Ballin - who was handed his first start for the Senior side, after impressing when coming on as a substitute to score the equalising goal at Dulwich Hamlet the week before.

He literally ran himself into the ground during the game, playing as the lone man upfront, and certainly didn’t look like a player more used to the defences in Division One of the Kent League.

His part in the game was to end midway through the second half, however. Having gone down with cramp, he bravely tried to struggle on - but finally had to admit defeat, and was replaced by Justin Ascheri.

A former Maidstone Road favourite, in the shape of Byron Walker - one of three ex-Chats in the Dover line-up - was given a golden opportunity to give his side the lead in the 70th minute, when he got away from Steve Binks on the edge of the Chatham Penalty Area. With only Whitehouse to beat, however, he tamely hit his shot straight into the waiting goalkeeper’s arms.

And Dover were made to pay as, within seconds, Chatham had restored their lead at the other end.
For some unaccountable reason Dover’s Lawrence Ball opted to allow a long punt up field from Whitehouse to run through to his own ‘keeper - and that was just the opening that Ascheri had been waiting for, as he slipped neatly round the startled Dover defender, ran on to the loose ball, and fired it neatly into the back of the net from the edge of the 18-yard box past the advancing Ruddy.

Three minutes later, though, and all eyes were on Whitehouse once again - as he pulled off an amazing save to deny Dryden from point-blank range right on the goal line.

Sadly, it was to be his final contribution to the game - as just a minute later he was laying motionless on the field his face covered with blood.

Having gathered the ball at the foot of the right post, there is some dispute whether he had dropped it, or whether the ball had been kicked from his hands.

What was not in doubt was that he had been kicked in the face, leaving him with a nasty gash and leading to eight minutes of anxious treatment on the field from the physiotherapists of both clubs before he was helped to the changing rooms to await transportation to hospital.

In the aftermath, Keister was shown a second yellow card - followed by the red - for his part in the incident, while Dryden also appears to have been Cautioned in the confusion. Also into the book went the name of Chatham’s Tom Binks for something said in the heat of the moment.

With Miroslav Oravec on in place of Whitehouse, Chatham clearly now had something to prove, and they came close to scoring almost immediately when Ascheri once again got away on the right before firing the ball into the Luton end goalmouth.

Govey was waiting for the volley, completely unmarked, only to slice the ball wide of the open goal before him.

It was just postponing the inevitable, however, and three minutes after the game should have ended the Chats finally got their third goal.

Walker was dispossessed by Tom Davey on the halfway line, who then slipped a through ball into the path of Chatham’s leading scorer Smith - and with the Chatham supporters on their feet cheering him on he lobbed the ball from fully 25-yards over the advancing Ruddy, to put the result beyond doubt.

For the next nine minutes, Dover tried to find a way through the Chatham defence without success - before a number of lights on the floodlight pylons suddenly went out - along with the lights in the car park and the changing rooms.

Eager to clutch at any straw, the remaining Dover supporters - many of them having flooded from the ground after that third goal went in - began to call for the match to be abandoned, while the players stood around waiting to find out what was going to happen.

Finally, after speaking to the two captains, the referee blew for full time - which he had been about to do anyway when it suddenly went dark, before being escorted from the field through the angry travelling supporters.

Chatham Town: Whitehouse (Oravec 83), Binks, Finn, Smith, Solly, Best, Smith, Govey, Ballin (Ascheri 67), Davey, Suter (Rowe 73).
Subs: Staff, Adgie.

Dover Athletic: Ruddy, Fish, Rogers, Bourne, Cloke, Keister, Ball, Hessenthaler, Dryden, Collin, Welford (Walker 65).
Subs: Andrews, Pouton, Browning, Tanner.

Attendance: 515
Referee: Mr P Harris (Maidstone)