Deal Town 2-3 Ashford United - We haven't done as well as we should've done with the squad that we've got, admits Ashford United chief Lloyd Hume

Deal Town 2 – 3 Ashford United
Location	The Charles Sports Ground, St Leonards Road, Deal, Kent CT14 9AU
Kickoff	20/09/2025 15:00

DEAL TOWN 2-3 ASHFORD UNITED
The Isuzu FA Trophy Second Qualifying Round
Saturday 20 September 2025
Stephen McCartney reports from The Charles Sports Ground

ASHFORD UNITED manager/chairman Lloyd Hume says his side haven’t done as well as they should be doing after knocking their Kent rivals out of The FA Trophy to reach the Third Qualifying Round for the second successive season.

The Nuts & Bolts were 2-0 up during a flat first half with strike pair Jefferson Aibangbee and Gary Lockyer scoring, taking their goalscoring tally for the season to four and six goals respectively.

Deal Town, without a home League win so far this season, pulled a goal back through attacking midfielder Ben Chapman slotting in his 85^th goal of the club in his 300^th appearance, but Ashford United killed off any momentum with their third striker, Louis Collins, 24, clinically scoring his eighth-goal of the season just 54 seconds later.

Central midfielder, Jack Paxman, hooked in the home side’s second goal but making seven changes to their line-up – after losing 2-1 at Ashford United in the League on Tuesday night - backfired as Hume’s men ran out deserved winners, watched by a crowd of 454, with temperatures of 21 degrees on the Kent coast.

Goalkeeper James Tonkin, Paxman, centre-half Jacob Strouts and Ben Chapman were the sole survivors from midweek, while Hume made a couple of chances with right-back Freddie Fletcher and centre-half Joesph Ellul being recalled.

“I think it’s a game, on reflection, we’ve given away two poor goals,” said Hume during the post-match press conference.

“I think we could’ve scored seven or eight goals. We had a lot of opportunities in the second half.

“I’m not going to call us arrogant because I don’t think we were but I think a little bit of complacency and maybe a little bit of arrogance fell into the last 20 minutes, 25 minutes when we could go on and win that game comfortably and put it to bed.

“I think we’ve got to be two or three goals up before you start to take the liberties we took as forwards.  I’m not talking about our individual forwards; I’m talking about as a side.

“I’m pleased with the win. I’m very pleased with the win. I’m pleased with the performance. I’m pleased that we never got any more injuries today, so it’s another win that gives us a bit of momentum.”

Deal Town manager Steve King added: “I thought it was a decent game. I thought they were probably the better side over the course of 90 minutes but it’s been tough for us. We’ve had too many Cup games (eight) and we’ve had a really difficult start in the league with the (five) fixtures that we’ve played.

“I thought we played really well on Tuesday night at Ashford and we certainly deserved something in the League game. Obviously, they’ve come strong today.”

Both managers were asked about team selection for this FA Trophy Kent derby.

King, who had 19 outfield players and two goalkeeper’s warming up pre-match, said: “I think they made a couple of changes, we’ve made seven because we’ve got to go down to Hassocks on Tuesday and that’s a really important game for us, so we rotated it round. 

“We had a couple of players coming back from injury today, which probably looked like they were a little bit short of match fitness, which would be expected, so that was useful.

“I thought second half we had opportunities to get back level – they had opportunities on the counter as well, don’t get me wrong.  I’m frustrated but we knew what today was about and it was just about rotating, having a look at some other players and I certainly thought second half we did well.

“We want to respect every cup competition but still being in The FA Cup and having a massive game next Saturday and with a difficult start we’ve had in the League, we had had to make that decision today and not saying we went out not to win the game because we were trying to win the game.

“But we left Tom Chapman and Rory Smith out of the squad completely to make sure that both are fully firing.”

Hume added: “Deal made changes, we made changes and rested people and tried people in different areas.

“It was a game that we wanted to win but equally us and Deal clearly have an eye on our Tuesday night fixtures and they’ve got a big fixture next weekend (away to Chatham Town in The FA Cup Third Qualifying Round) as well and the League games are our most important.

“Winning is important and winning is a good habit to have, so I’m glad we got a win today.”

Deal Town started the game on the front foot, but both sides were often flat and lacked tempo and quality during a poor first half at The Charles Sports Ground.

Ashford United created their first opening inside the opening 11 minutes, courtesy of their impressive front three.

Collins and Aibangbee linked up well within the left and Aibangbee played in a low cross towards the near post where Lockyer steered a low shot through a crowd of players and was held low to his left by Tonkin.

Attacking midfielder Roarie Deacon and Aibangbee collided with each other down the left and Deal Town’s right-back Maxwell Niblett cleared his lines with a long ball.

Striker Mefose Esumobi cut inside Ellul down the right but his cross was gobbled up by Gillingham loanee-goalkeeper Taite Holtam at his near-post, dropping the cross and allowing it to bounce behind for the third of six Deal Town corners.

Ashford United often played the ball around the back but centre-half William Moses often hit long balls out of defence towards the head of high right-back Fletcher inside their opponents half.

Ashford United opened the scoring with a clinical first-time finish from Aibangbee with 15 minutes and 15 seconds on the clock.

Esumobi failed to press Moses, who hit a long ball towards Fletcher’s head, who flicked the ball on before central midfielder Jack Dixon played a 20-yard cross filed pass along the deck from the right into the middle for the unmarked Aibangbee to drill a clinical first time right-footed drive into the roof of the net from 16-yards.

“It was a great finish,” said Hume.

“A lot of people, when you’re running on the ball at that speed, when the ball’s arriving, it’s hard to get over the ball and keep it down and he finished that brilliantly to be fair.

“I was pleased with all of our goals. Jeff was brilliant at times. Lou was brilliant, Gary was brilliant.

“I’ve just said in the dressing room, I always sound stupid that I’m moaning about my forwards not being more clinical because we’ve scored three goals away from home and all three forwards have scored a goal but I thought they were all an equal threat today.

“I think we caused them problems going forward. When we were positive about getting forward, we ran riot a little bit but what we didn’t do, is we didn’t have that finishing touch which we needed a little bit today.”

King usually comes out reasonably early post-match but he was the latest he’s ever been following today’s game and offered an explanation when asked about Ashford’s opening goal.

“We’ve just watched it in there, that’s why I’m a little bit late out – because we’ve got a journey down to Hassocks (around eight miles north of Brighton).

“It might sound a bit weird but when you’re part-time, we have to do our pre-game meeting tonight, rather than get them in for training. If it’s a local game on a Tuesday, you can get there early and get it done but it’s going to be a nightmare to get down there so we’ve done it tonight.

“We’ve just watched all three goals back as a squad. The first goal, it’s just hung in the air and I think we’ve just got to go and attack it and win the header.  Once it’s been a bit bitty over the far side and they’ve broken through, you’re then outnumbered and it was a good finish from Jefferson, first time.

“But yes, I thought we should’ve dealt with the first long ball better. Having played them on Tuesday we knew that’s a ball they like into the channel, towards the high right-back, so we knew exactly what’s coming, so it didn’t catch us by surprise but I thought we should’ve just won the header to be honest.”

Niblett cut in from the right and easily danced past Ellul and his low cross forced Holtam to dive low to his right to parry just 88 seconds later – but the home side lacked quality during a poor, flat, first half performance.

Ashford United were to be denied a second, thanks to a double save from Tonkin in the 35^th minute.

Deacon – who played behind the front three – floated their second corner in from the right, a towering header from Ellul knocked the ball towards the left-hand corner and Collins’ flick was clawed out by the Deal keeper, high to his right.  Tonkin then made a good reaction save with his legs to prevent Aibangbee’s low driven shot nestling into the net.

Hume said: “The keeper made some decent saves but no spectacular saves. We weren’t clinical enough.

“We threatened bits today. We were a threatening team but I was disappointed that we gave away sloppy goals as well, that’s how I saw it.”

King admitted: “I thought we were poor first half. I wasn’t pleased with our performance. We looked leggy and we looked short of match fitness, especially in the back four, which is to be expected when you’re bringing players back from injury but Tonks probably kept us in it in the first half.

“That was a great save and their front line is dangerous, all three of them, Lockyer, Collins, Jefferson, they’re good players.

“We’re not here to talk about Tuesday but on Tuesday night they played the same front three. I thought we defended really well but today we were just a yard off it and we needed our goalkeeper to help us out there.”

Ashford United produced a well-worked move to deservedly double their advantage, with 38 minutes and 44 seconds on the clock.

An unpressed Moses hit a long ball out of defence towards the right-flank where Collins easily cut inside two Deal defenders before playing the ball inside to Deacon in the middle.

Deacon then rolled the ball to Aibangbee on the left-hand side of the box and he put it on a plate for Lockyer, who placed a first-time right-footed side-footed finish across Tonkin from six-yards. 

“Really good. To be honest, that was my favourite goal,” said Hume.

“We passed the ball really well and then we got the ball forward, so we passed it around the back, kept it and then we got it forward on Will Moses side, which then we played it across and a great finish from Gary.

“Gary’s where he’s meant to be and put it away, so yes, a good goal.”

King added: “It was a well-worked goal but if you go all the way back from the start, we had them pressed in their own corner and they hit a 70-yard ball that we switched off with our defence positioning and that enabled Louis Collins to get in.

“From that point when he’s got over the far right-hand side, it’s then a really well-worked goal from them.

“I’ve just said to the boys in there, it’s actually quite hard to defend once you’ve got that first bit wrong with their quality but for us that’s really disappointing.

“If Ben Chapman’s pressing them in near the corner flag and they’ve ended up getting in through from one ball while under pressure, and that was frustrating from our point of view and it wasn’t good enough and we’ve spoken about it in the dressing room.”

Deal Town were to be denied by a comfortable save from Holtam, as the home side counter-attacked (41:04).

Paxman was in space inside his own half and swept a left-footed through ball to release winger James Fielding.  The 16-year-old cut inside Fletcher but his left-footed shot was comfortably held by Holtam, low to his left.

With his two black socks rolled down towards his ankles, Deal Town’s number nine, Esumobi failed to impress and it was a shock that he played all of the 48 minutes and 23 seconds of the first half.

Despite being six foot tall, he failed to win a single header (as he came up against Moses), failed to press the Ashford defence, didn’t run and looked disinterested and when the ball bounced over his head when a long ball was played over the half-way line, the writing was on the wall for the former Corinthian striker.

Esumobi should have been hooked inside the opening 20 minutes as he look lost and way out of his depth - and it was no surprise when King hooked him at the interval after an awful performance from the central striker.

“I thought he struggled, I thought he struggled,” admitted King, when asked about Esumobi's performance.

“He’s raw, he’s got a great attitude. He’s got all of the natural attributes but I think against experienced defenders it sort of looked like he got caught in two minds between what he did and I didn’t feel that he really got the press on.

“But he’s a player that we really like and I stick with players, we’re loyal and we progress them but I didn’t think he had a really good first half and that’s why tactically we made the sub at half-time.

“I’m not going to throw him under the bus because I brought him to the football club and for a 20-year-old he’s already shown this season that he’s got something but I put him in.

“A lot of people won’t realise our left-winger James Fielding, he’s only just turned 16 and Owen Wilknson on the other side is only 18, so I think maybe going with a front three (being those ages) against their experienced back line we probably didn’t give Mef the support that we might’ve had if we had Tom Chapman and Ashley Miller.

“I don’t think he had his greatest day, hence why he was brought off but he’s a big part of what we want to do.”

Hume said: “At half-time, I wanted more of the same in the second half but I warned against complacency and that’s what fell in a little bit.

King added: “Just get our energy up! I just thought, the word I used at half-time, I said ‘I was bored!’.  I thought our first-half performance was boring!

“I thought we didn’t look a threat. We didn’t look front foot. We looked a bit sloppy, we looked a bit slow and I don’t like my sides playing like that and I said whatever happens second half, I want you to entertain me. I don’t want to be bored.

“We put young Owen (Wilkinson) through the middle up front with that energy. I brought Ife (Oni) on, who’s been struggling with a little bit of a hamstring, which is why he didn’t start today. He pulled up in the warm up on Tuesday.

“I just said ‘I want us to play with energy’ and I thought we did that.”

On came Ifeoluwa Oni in Esumobi’s place, playing wide right and right-winger Owen Wilkinson switched to central striker and the move paid off as Deal Town scored with two minutes and 36 seconds on the clock, with a three man move down the middle of the pitch.

Holding midfielder Jack Palmby played a short pass into Fielding, who slid and poked a through ball to feed Chapman, who skipped past the advancing Holtam before slotting his left-footed shot into the back of an empty net.

Ben Chapman has made 276 starts and 24 sub appearances and reached a special milestone today.

“I spoke to the boys in the dressing room before, it’s a fantastic achievement from Ben or anyone to play 300 games in non-league football. It’s brilliant and that was his 85^th goal from midfield, which takes some doing especially when he doesn’t take penalties or free-kicks,” said King.

“I thought it was exactly what we needed, exactly the spark we needed and young James Fielding, I thought he did really well today. A 16-year-old kid. I’ve got him at school with me, he did really well in the Kent Senior Cup game against Sittingbourne and we thought we’ll see what he’s made off out there today and I don’t think he let himself down and he did really well with that goal and you always fancy Ben when he goes through.”

Hume added: “Yes, good finish, good goal, all I can say about that.

“I think we deal with that further up the pitch and it doesn’t happen. If you look where that goal came from, it came from us being sloppy, give the ball away in their half.”

However, Ashford United swiftly went up the other end, scoring their third goal of the game, just 54 seconds later, timed at three minutes and 42 seconds.

A precise ball from Dixon released Collins in behind centre-half Strouts (with good movement) and he clinically drilled an angled right-footed drive across the keeper to find the bottom far corner.

“Yes, we responded very, very quickly. Louie got a goal that I’m pleased about because it sounds stupid, he hasn’t scored for a couple of games. For Louis it is a tough ask but I’m glad he’s scored.  I think that’s eight that he’s got now in about 12 games so far this season, so very good form,” added Hume.

King said: “I’ve possibly got to put my hand up to be honest on that one because we said at half-time about going on a real hard press and we’ve shown a little of inexperience because we’ve scored and I think we over-pressed and having got the goal back we probably didn’t need to do that.

“But the message at half-time was ‘we just got to get some energy into it’ and they just picked us off and you can’t let someone like Louis Collins that amount of space that we did.  He’s a good striker. He’s a good player and he’s finished it.

“What we learnt last year is the best players don’t make many mistakes and where we are still a little bit short is when we come up against these real top sides. 

“I would sign a lot of their players if I had the resources. What you learn in this division is that your mistakes get punished. I don’t mean this disrespectfully to anyone but if you defend the way we did against most Step Five sides, you get away with it, so it’s just learning that you don’t get away with it when you’re playing against good players.”

“I think that (goal) probably showed our lack of experience again today a little bit where we’ve got back into it three minutes into the second half and rather than just breathing, we even had the throw-in in their half from kick-off.

“If you let people like Louis Collins, Jack Dixon, people like that, Gary Lockyer, if you give them time and space they’re going to hurt you and that’s what happened, very frustrated.”

Deal Town showed great character in the second half, however, and Oni and Fielding linked up well within the right channel and the ball was whipped the ball in and found Wilkinson at the back post and his shot produced a fine reaction save from Holtam (16:25).

“I thought the keeper made a couple of brilliant saves. I was really pleased with the young lads second half.  I thought we gave it a real good go and that’s what I asked for at half-time,” said King.

“I said I want to enjoy the second half and I enjoyed watching it. I didn’t enjoy the fact that we didn’t get back into the game but I enjoyed watching the second half and if it wasn’t for the keeper, on another day, we might’ve got back into it.”

Deal Town’s momentum gave them their second goal, timed at 18 minutes and 30 seconds on the clock.

Paxman fed Fielding down the left, the teenager cut into the box before feeding Chapman, whose right-footed shot flew across Holtam and clipped the far post. The ball rolled out to Paxman, who hooked his clinical half-volley under the keeper into the centre of the goal to score his first goal of the season.

King said: “I thought we deserved a goal for that. I didn’t think it was going to go in.  Young James did really well, cut in, great cross. Ben probably should’ve scored to be honest, obviously he’s hit the post and then good composure from Jasck to finish and get us back into the game.”

Hume added: “Again, for me, I see it as a sloppy goal that we gave away. We didn’t defend as well as we should’ve done but we’ve just made a few changes ourselves to give people rests so that’s always going to disgruntle you a little bit but I think that point onwards we controlled the rest of the game.”

Hume brought on 42-year-old Matthew Bodkin for Ellul just before the hour-mark, playing at right-back as Fletcher switched to partner Moses at right-centre-back, with Kane Penn retaining his left-back berth.

Ashford United went on to create some counter-attacking chances, mainly from outside the box during the final 20 minutes.

Bodkin threw the ball short to sub right-winger Kaelem Sobhee-Turner, who fed Lockyer, who laid the ball off to Collins and his right-footed first-time drive towards the bottom right-hand corner was tipped around the post by Tonkin, diving low to his left.

Hume said: “We always watch games back, me and my management team and we’ll look at that and go how did we not score there? There were so many opportunities where we’ve got opportunities to shot from inside the box and right on the edge of the box with no one really in front of us and the keeper made some decent saves.”

The threatening Aibangbee linked up well with sub William Duprey down the left and the initial cross was cleared out to holding midfielder Liam Gillies, whose right-footed drive from 30-yards flashed across the keeper and past the far post. (28:32).

A long ball from left-back Kane Penn released Lockyer, who cut onto his right-foot inside the box before dragging his shot past the far post as the game ticked towards the final 15 minutes.

Ashford United kept knocking on the door and Gillies laid the ball off for Lockyer, whose first time right-footed drive from 18-yards was comfortably caught at head height by Tonkin.

Tonkin launched the ball upfield and substitute Wes Hennesesy raced through but his shot beat Holtam but lacked power and was cleared away by Penn inside his six-yard box.

Penn cut inside and fed Lockyer in space, taking a touch before hitting a low right-footed drive from 25-yards with his second touch, forcing Tonkin to dive low to his right to push behind for a corner.

King added: “Look, at 3-2, with 15-20 minutes left, there’s no goal-difference in the cups. If you get beat 4-2, 5-2,  I prefer that to have happened with them scoring on the counter and I thought we had a go.

“I thought at 3-2, we probably had three good chances that you expect when you go for it. At the end of the game the other team will have chances and I don’t think they had anything clear-cut, a lot of it was shots from outside the box. I fancy Tonks to deal with most of them, unless it’s an absolute screamer.

Dominant Ashford United forced Tonkin into making another diving save inside the final five minutes when Collins dropped deep, fed Aibangbee before Collins controlled the ball with two touches before striking a low right-footed drive from 30-yards with his third, as the busy Tonkin dived to his left to tip around his post.

Deal Town brought on Alfie Foster and he was operating as an emergency striker late on but despite putting in a vastly-improved second half performance, they couldn’t snatch a late leveller to take it to penalties.

Ashford United produced another well-worked move (46:56) when man-of-the-match Aibanbee worked the ball in from the left wing, Sobhee-Turner teed up Duprey, who drilled his right-footed 25-yarder just over the crossbar.

Collins fed Aibangbee, who cut in towards the edge of the box and his right-footed shot flashed across the diving goalkeeper and just past the foot of the far post, as the home side failed to deal with the threatening Collins and Aibangbee.

“I’m pleased with the way that we saw the game out but again I don’t want to keep repeating, we should’ve scored more goals in that game than we did and that’s frustrating – I’m glad we won,” added Hume, who was asked about the injury situation at the club.

“Barry Fuller’s got a scan on Monday to see how his injury’s coming along, we’re hoping it’s positive news and maybe two or three weeks but I can’t answer at all until Monday.

“Michael West trained the other day. Sam Hasler’s back in light training, so I’m hoping they’re both be back involved in the next two weeks and they’ll both make a massive difference.

“Listen, any game is a big game. I hope we get a home game (in the next round). I hope we get someone local, so we can get the fans down there.

“I want to win as many games as we can. Winning is a good habit to have and hopefully we can get a few players back from injury in the next couple of weeks, which will be good.”

King, meanwhile, revealed that Macauley Murray will “have a chance with next weekend, he’s so close. The other players not selected today was tactical.”

Ashford United remain in 18^th place (bottom five) in the Isthmian League South East Division, having picked up five points (one win, two draws) from their opening five games.

Hume's men are at home to second-placed Three Bridges (four wins from five) on Tuesday night, a side that thrashed Kevin Watson’s Sheppey United 7-1 at Jubillee Field on Tuesday 9 September.

“I’m expecting a really tough game against Three Bridges. They’re a really good side, they’re a very physical side and they were up there last year and I expect them to be in the play-offs this year.

“They’ve got some really good players. We’ve got to be at our best on Tuesday to get something.

“I want to finish in the play-offs. We haven’t done as well as we should’ve done (finishing in eleventh last season), with the squad that we’ve got.”

Deal Town, meanwhile – seventh-placed finishes last season – make the long trip to newly-promoted side Hassocks.

Deal Town remain second-from-bottom, with one win from five, while James Westlake’s side sit in seventh with 10 points (three wins, one draw, one defeat) and were held to a 1-1 draw at home to AFC Whyteleafe today.

Looking ahead to their first visit to The Beacon, King said: “Tough, isn’t it. I think they’ve only lost one in five, they got a good draw against Whyteleafe at home today.

“We’ve done our work, we’ve already done it before today, so we’ve just had our meeting in there, so we’ll be ready to go. 

“The plan was to go there fresh, so we’ve got six, seven, eight, probably seven changes from today because we were very aware of not going down there fatigued and with lots of tired legs, so we’ll probably make six, seven changes on Tuesday.

“We need to win a game of football. We need to get some points in the League. It’s all well and good saying we’ve had a tough start, which we have but that means when you’re playing teams that probably aren’t going to be in the play-offs, you need to be picking up the wins.

“We’ll be looking to go and get something on Tuesday night. It’s a long trip, we’ve got to contend with all of that but we try to do things professionally, that’s why we’ve done everything today, so we’re not panicking when we get to the ground.

“We know what we’ve got to do and I’ve got to be honest with you, I know we’ve still got next Saturday’s (FA Cup tie at Chatham Town) to prepare for.

“I’m just looking forward to getting a run of League games because it’s so hard when you’re not playing in the League to get momentum because you’re playing all sort of different teams in cup games.”

Deal Town: James Tonkin, Maxwell Niblett, Jack Penny, Jack Palmby (Morgan Page 57), Jacob Strouts, Joshua Vincent (Wes Hennessey 76), James Fielding (Alfie Foster 75), Jack Paxman, Mefose Esumobi (Ifeoluwa Oni 46), Ben Chapman, Owen Wilkinson.
Sub: Alex Green

Goals: Ben Chapman 47, Jack Paxman 64

Booked: Jack Palmby 55, Alfie Foster 90

Ashford United: Taite Holtam, Freddie Fletcher, Kane Penn, Liam Gillies, William Moses, Joseph Ellul (Matthew Bodkin 58), Jefferson Aibangbee, Jack Dixon (Kaelem Sobhee-Turner 63), Gary Lockyer, Roarie Deacon (William Duprey 73), Louis Collins.
Subs: Miquel Scarlett, Scott Podger-King

Goals: Jefferson Aibangbee 16, Gary Lockyer 39, Louis Collins 48

Booked: Kaelem Sobhee-Turner 76

Attendance: 454
Referee: Mr Edward Smith
Assistants: Mr Tom Amber & Mr Benjamin Marshall