Holmesdale 2-7 Tunbridge Wells - We need to find a litlte bit of desire and passion, says Holmesdale boss Byron Beard

Holmesdale 2 – 7 Tunbridge Wells
Location	68 Oakley Road, Bromley, Kent BR2 8HQ
Kickoff	02/12/2015 19:45

HOLMESDALE  2-7  TUNBRIDGE WELLS
Southern Counties East Football League
Wednesday 2^nd December 2015
Stephen McCartney reports from Oakley Road

HOLMESDALE manager Byron Beard admitted his players’ lacked desire after they were torn apart by Tunbridge Wells.

 

The writing was on the wall for the Bromley side as their players were still sitting in the clubhouse before being called in to the dressing room 45 minutes before kick-off while Tunbridge Wells were outside going through their warm-up.

When Holmesdale did take to the field they played like 11 strangers and their defending was shocking.  Classy Tunbridge Wells took full advantage to win their first league away game of the season to climb three places into ninth in the Southern Counties East Football League table with 21 points from 18 games.

On tonight’s Sunday League-esque performance, Holmesdale are favourites to suffer relegation at the end of the season.  They are bottom-of-the-table on 8 points from 16 games and they have the worst defensive record in the entire league, having conceded 63 goals.

Goalkeeper Jack Yerlett, 17, had a night to forget in what is likely to be his last game for Holmesdale, who signed Rob French before the game following his departure from Ryman League Division One South side Faversham Town.

Brilliant Tunbridge Wells raced into a 5-0 lead inside the opening 31 minutes, much to the delight of their travelling fans who stayed under shelter at the cricket ground end of the ground for the entire game.

Man-of-the-match Joe Nwoko was unplayable and scored the first of his three goals inside the opening seven minutes, before Rikki Cable scored against his former club, before Chris Seenan converted a penalty, before adding his second, before Nwoko left Holmesdale shell-shocked.

Scottish striker Seenan completed his hat-trick early in the second half, before Holmesdale pulled a couple of goals back from debutant Danny Akers, who scored two long-range strikes in 11 minutes, before Nwoko completed the scoring by netting his hat-trick.

Tunbridge Wells also hit the crossbar three times and skipper Joe Fuller even missed a last minute penalty, but manager Jason Bourne was delighted with his side’s performance.

He said: “Firstly, a good feeling, well overdue. It wasn’t all about the win, it was more about the performance and the performance today was very good, first half especially.

“We kept the ball much better, we did the basics better and it gave us a platform to go and build on, so it’s good.

“There was an attendance of 88 here and probably 80 of them were Tunbridge Wells so it’s good to give something back to them. That’s what it’s all about, that’s what we’re striving for.

“We had four players on 9s out of ten and everyone else wasn’t below a seven.”

Holmesdale manager Beard, to his credit, spoke for nearly 14 minutes and could not believe what he was watching.

“Terrible! To be honest. Just didn’t show up tonight. First half particularly, it was particularly poor.  We just didn’t do the basics from the first whistle.

“We got found out pretty quickly by their direct style, which is pretty much getting it up to the front man and playing off the young lad up top. Fair play to them.

“I’m really disappointed in the performance and I’ve let the guys know that.

“It was shocking, it was shocking and the players I’ve brought in looking across the back line you’ve got three out the back four haven’t played together before.  We took a bit of a gamble tonight. We put Joe Jackson (signed from Erith & Belvedere) and put him straight in there but unfortunately it just didn’t click tonight.

“We were very disjointed and a couple of decent strikers have shown that at this level if you’re not switched on from the first whistle you’re going to get punished.”

The only bright spark for outplayed Holmesdale came in the shape of their left-winger Josh Froggatt, who Beard plucked from his former club Orpington.

Froggatt cut in from the left and was tackled on the edge of the penalty area and the ball came out to an unmarked Jack White, who dragged his right-footed shot past the left-hand post from 25-yards.

But Holmesdale’s defence went missing for the first time as Nwoko’s fine solo goal gave clinical Tunbridge Wells the lead, the goal timed at 06:58.

Nwoko was given acres of space by the Holmesdale defence to drill a low right-footed shot from 30-yards, which nestled into the bottom left-hand corner.

Bourne said: “It was a nice finish. Joe’s been cracking for us. He’s great to have in the changing room. He scores a lot of goals. He’s such a nice lad. He works hard, he’s enjoying himself and when he came to us he said ‘I just want to enjoy my football again’ and it looks like he is.”

Beard added: “Again, he’s dropped off from the two centre halves, no one’s gone with him, he’s allowed to turn, travel and pick his spot but from 30-yards. I expect someone to challenge, maybe the keeper could’ve done a little bit better and got his hand to it.”

Nwoko, who on tonight’s performance should be playing in the league above and created Tunbridge Wells’ second goal, timed at 10:32.

The striker glided past left-back James Teoderscuo and Joe Jackson as if they wasn’t there, cut into the penalty area and cut the ball across the face of goal for Cable to take a touch before steering his shot into the bottom left-hand corner from two-yards.

Bourne said: “Composed finish. Nice work from Joe. It was good from there.  We felt we had momentum and then everyone just relaxed a little bit and we played some good stuff.”

Former players tend to score against their former club and Cable only signed from Holmesdale a couple of weeks earlier.

Beard said: “Look, he couldn’t miss from there. Good work from the lad out wide and I thought he troubled us all night.

“Unfortunately when I took over the vultures circled and I lost four or five in the end.   I think in total since I’ve taken over there’s probably 17-18, the squad’s gone.”

Holmesdale squandered their best chance of the night after 15 minutes.

They won a free-kick close to the corner flag down the right.  The ball was swung in left-footed by Teodrscuo and Froggatt hooked the ball straight into Steve Lawrence’s hands at his near post from a tight angle.

That chance proved costly as the game quickly ran away from a disinterested Holmesdale side.

Khalil McFarlane was tripped inside the penalty area by Quentin Conteh and Seenan sent Yerlett the wrong way with a drilled right-footed penalty into the right-hand corner to make the score 3-0 with 18:26 on the clock.

Bourne said: “The penalty was a foul on KJ (McFarlane), but like the one at Croydon at the weekend it was a little soft if I’m honest.  There was contact there and Chris made no mistake from the penalty spot.”

Beard added: “I think it’s pretty soft. He’s got his toe there, the guys kicked him in the back of the leg but you always see those ones given.  They’re a bit of a weird one. Although you get your foot there your standing leg’s there and they normally clip the ankle and down they go.

“Look, I don’t think it matters about that penalty shout when you’re giving away goals as frequently as we were tonight. It put a bit of icing on the cake for them.”

Nwoko then found himself on the left-hand side of the penalty area and his angled drive was saved comfortably by Yerlett at his near post.

Tunbridge Wells raced into a 4-0 lead with 25:18 on the clock when Nwoko threaded the ball through to Seenan (via a deflection) and the former Whitstable Town striker drilled his right-footed angled drive across the keeper to find the bottom far corner.

Bourne was full of praise for his captain tonight, who kept things ticking along in the middle of the park.

“I thought Joe Fuller was terrific tonight. I spoke to him about what we expect from him and tonight he was exceptional and that’s the standards and when Joe’s playing like that he makes us a different team. It was nice to see him enjoy himself on a football pitch again.”

When asked what he was thinking at this stage of the match, Beard admitted the worse.

“A rugby score, if I’m honest.  That’s what I said to the guys at half-time. At 4-0 I looked at it and I just thought to myself really we need the half-time to come, otherwise it’s going to end up a double figure type scoreline.

“Unfortunately, the way we’ve been defending over the last couple of weeks, that’s all I could see happening.”

Tunbridge Wells handed central midfielder Stephen Ikpeme his debut having signed him on dual-registration from Maidstone United’s Academy.

And he played his part in Tunbridge Wells’ fifth goal, timed at 30:31.

McFarlane played the ball up into Ikpeme’s feet, who played a sublime inch-perfect through ball in behind Teoderscuo and Jackson.  Nwoko took the ball in his stride to skip past the advancing Yerlett, before slotting his shot into the bottom far corner.

Bourne praised debutant  Ikpeme, by saying, “He did really well. He looks commanding in there for a youngster. He played his first game at this level in any men’s football actually.

“He’s one we’ve been watching over the previous weeks. He didn’t disappoint at all.  You always wonder when you watch a kid play Academy football, he was outstanding when we watched him for the Academy so it’s interesting to see how that translates into men’s football and I thought he did very well.

“He was accomplished on the ball, a nice little partnership with Fuller. Hopefully more to come. We don’t want to put loads of pressure on him or any other young player and we’ll just see how he develops.”

Beard questioned his players’ lack of desire at this point.

“”Look, you can set up a team, you can set up a bunch of lads to play a particular formation, to play a particular way, but if the desire isn’t there, you’ve got no hope.  They need to find that between themselves, which they need to find a little bit of desire and passion to actually play.

“We all do it for fun. Again, it’s not fun losing 5-0 after 40 minutes, it’s ridiculous.”

It should have been six for Tunbridge Wells when Fuller released McFarlane down the right and he whipped in a deep cross towards the unmarked Cable, who watched his looping header bounce down off the crossbar and Holmesdale survived.

McFarlane and Nwoko linked up in midfield and Ikpeme had the confidence to charge through a static Holmesdale defence but Yerlett made a low save.

Battered Holmesdale left-back Teoderscuo took his frustration out on the ball, powerfully hitting a speculative shot from 35-yards, which went harmlessly wide, before the impressive Ikpeme dragged his shot wide after a good run and Fuller’s right-footed shot on the turn from 25-yards was comfortably saved by Yerlett.

Had this been a boxing match, referee Scott Rudd would have stopped the non-contest at half-time.

Bourne said :”I’ve played in games like this before and you’ve seen them a million times where you get to five and it goes off the boil and it whimpers out to being nothing much of a spectacle so we wanted good habits.

“The scoreline at that point was irrelevant. The game was won so we just wanted to do things in the right way and we didn’t let off the gas.

“It was 5-0 on 31 and that was the message at half-time. We still want the job done and we want a job done properly and that’s what we said to them.

“We haven’t had a clean sheet in a long time so I really wanted a clean sheet.  I said to the boys at half-time, nothing else, it’s a clean sheet tonight.”
 

When asked what he said to his players during the interval, the Holmesdale boss replied: “Not a lot! I’ll be honest, what can I say? I think they know what’s happened. I’ve given them a bit of a rollicking as you’d expect but it’s also actually now you need to play for a bit of pride.

“At 5-0 down there’s no way back into the game for us but it was more about stopping them making the mistakes and the basic mistakes. We’re leaking goals time and time again.”

Tunbridge Wells didn’t ease of the gas, scoring a sixth goal two minutes and 21 seconds into the second half.

Nwoko unselfishly played the ball inside to Seenan, who drilled his right-footed shot into the top left-hand corner from 12-yards to score his hat-trick, taking his tally to seven goals for the club this season.

Bourne added: “That was his hat-trick. It was a nice move as well so it was nice to see him get a hat-trick and get him back amongst the goals. It’s just going to breed confidence.”

Beard added: “Just switched off again. We tried to stay tight for the first 10 minutes of each half and once again we’ve conceded in that magical first six or seven minutes after half-time.  It’s just the way it’s been for us tonight. It’s every chance they’ve had.”

New signing Akers, though, took the game by the scruff of the neck to restore some pride for Holmesdale, pulling a goal back after 52 minutes.

Akers whipped his right-footed free-kick over the wall from 25-yards and the ball dipped and nestled into the bottom left-hand corner.

Beard said: “We’ve brought Danny in from Erith Town. He’s signed yesterday. He hasn’t played for a little while and I thought he done a decent shift.

“I thought there was only a couple of players out there really and he’s one of them that put in a decent shift tonight.

“He’s got that quality about him. I just think he needs an arm around him. He’s been a little wayward at some of the clubs he’s been but hopefully we can start to build a team around him.”

Bourne added: “It was a great free-kick. Steve set the wall up and he’s got it up and over the wall and there wasn’t much Steve could do about it, nice free-kick.”

Tunbridge Wells left-back Alfie Hall played the ball out of defence down the channel and Seenan’s low shot from a tight angle was flicked away by Yerlett but substitute Nick Graham steered his shot past the foot of the near post from close range.

Holmesdale’s only threat, Froggatt, called Steve Lawrence into making a comfortable save on the hour-mark.

Alani Mounter played the ball into Quentin Conteh, who swept the ball out wide to Froggatt, who sped down the wing, cut towards the edge of the box but his right-footed shot from 20-yards rolled into the keeper’s hands.

Beard said: “I’ve known Josh for a couple of years now, he’s a good lad, frustrating at times. He knows that. We speak on a regular basis. I speak to him virtually every day.

“We try to improve him. Look, he’s got quality and he can play at this level quite comfortably, if not go a little bit higher if we can coach him in the right way. He’s only a young lad, 21.

“He gets a little bit frustrated at times but I think that’s his youth. Hopefully as we start to improve –and we will improve – you’ll start to see more of them and he’ll get more on the scoresheet.  Up until today he’s scored four in five, stepping up a league, he’s doing well.”

Holmesdale scored their 29^th league goal of the season with 63 minutes on the clock.

Substitute Gio Fullone played the ball into Conteh’s feet, who poked the ball inside to an unmarked Akers, who drilled a first time right-footed drive into the bottom left-hand corner from 30-yards.

Beard added: “That’s what Danny’s got! Danny can play centre mid, right-mid, he can play right-back, he’s quite versatile.

“But when he’s fit and he’s hungry, he’s quite good in the middle there. He breaks things up and you’ve seen tonight he’s got a couple of decent strikes on him.”

Bourne added: “I thought we should’ve put a bit more pressure on that to be honest. When I go back to my half-time team-talk the standards and the things to be done properly. I thought that was a little bit of a soft goal and that maybe took a bit of a shine off it because I was really determined to do things properly for 90 minutes – but it’s still a nice finish!

But that was as good as it got for Holmesdale as Tunbridge Wells acknowledged that they stepped off the gas by upping their game once more.

Parsons released Seenan down the left channel and he lashed his shot towards the roof of the net, which Yerlett tipped onto the crossbar and behind for a corner.

Bourne said: “I believe we hit the bar three times tonight. It could’ve been more potentially but it was a good night for us. Very pleased to get the feel good factor back.”

Parsons cut inside and stroked his right-footed drive from 25-yards, which saw Yerlett dance to his right to make a comfortable low save.

Lawrence made another comfortable save as quiet Holmesdale striker Shawn Beveney’s attempted right-footed chip from 25-yards was caught by the virtual spectator in the goal.

Tunbridge Wells made it seventh heaven with thirteen minutes remaining.

Central defender Ollie Cooke clipped a long ball out of defence to put Nwoko through on goal and he chipped the ball from the edge of the box over the advancing Yerlett and deserved to watch his hat-trick go in, dropping into the back of the net to wrap up an outstanding night from the striker.

Bourne said: “Nice finish! Ollie Cook put the ball in. It was a nice finish. The keeper came out and he’s chipped it over he keeper and it’s job done there.”

Beard added: “Jack hasn’t had the best game tonight. We’ve had a chat with him and told him that he understands that.  He’s a young lad, he’s learning his trade but at the moment it’s one of those that unfortunately every mistake we’re making at the moment people are punishing us.

“We need to change that and we’re working on it but look, 7-2, I said to them at half-time go out there and put a bit of pride and much of that second half we were the better team but what we failed to cope with tonight was the long ball really. They like playing it up to the guys at the top there and getting it into them quickly and spraying it wide, a bit like most of the teams in the league and unfortunately they killed us today.”

Beard hopes signing a Ryman League goalkeeper will improve matters defensively.

“Rob French was here tonight, we have signed him. We’ve had a chat with him, he’s signed. It was coincidence before it was announced that he was leaving Faversham he’s move local to the area. His cousin plays for us. We had a chat and you can see for the final scoreline tonight we need to bring in a little bit of experience in that area.”

A well-timed tackle from Jackson inside the penalty area denied Ikpeme scoring a dream debut goal after he easily skipped past the woeful Holmesdale defenders.

Seenan was subbed and Bourne brought on Perry Spackman and played him as a target-man and he won Tunbridge Wells a last minute penalty after being brought down by Yerlett.

Fuller, who bossed the midfield alongside Ikpeme, skied his right-footed penalty high over the crossbar.

Bourne added: “Fuller’s record on penalties is awful!  Fuller’s not the best penalty taker. I think if Seenan was on there he’d have a few words to say about it but what can you say? If you put a couple of goals on top of each other it probably wouldn’t have gone in, but never mind.”

When asked where Holmesdale can go from here, Beard remains upbeat that he can guide the club away from relegation trouble.

“Up is the only way we can go. We’re bottom at the moment. We need to pick up points,” said Beard.

“In our team we’ve got quality. It takes a little bit of time to get to know how each other are playing but once we’re there I think we will climb the table. I can see us finishing fourteenth in the league and hopefully the chairman (Mark Harris) can see it that well as well.

“Mark is very supportive. He knows what I’ve come into and what was left here and with a change of manager there’s a change of players and there’s some unrest and transition and that’s what we’re in at the moment, we’re in a transition.”

Tunbridge Wells are now in ninth-place in the table, 18 points adrift of league leaders Hollands & Blair.

Bourne said: “It’s respectable. It’s still not good enough for a club like Tunbridge Wells, make no bones about it. It’s a lot better than it was at the beginning of the evening. “

Holmesdale: Jack Yerlett, Sean Mason, James Teoderscuo, Aaron Day, Joe Jackson, Jack White (Gio Fullone 32), Alani Mounter (Adriano Lawson 62), Danny Akers, Shawn Beveney, Quentin Conteh (Steve Korkari 70), Josh Froggatt.
Subs: Alex Chapman, Ricky North

Goals: Danny Akers 52, 63

Booked: Joe Jackson 38, Danny Akers 48

Tunbridge Wells: Steve Lawrence, Kieron Tarbie, Alfie Hall, Stephen Ikpeme, Ollie Cooke, Tom Bryant, Khalil McFarlane (Ian Parsons 64), Joe Fuller, Chris Seenan (Perry Spackman 82), Joe Nwoko, Rikki Cable (Nick Graham 51).
Subs: Lee Radford, Jason Barton

Goals: Joe Nwoko 7, 31, 77, Rikki Cable 11, Chris Seenan 19 (penalty), 26, 48

Attendance: 88
Referee: Mr Scott Rudd (Dartford)
Assistants: Mr Tom McCourt (Charlton, London SE7) & Mr Mark Jenkins (Welling)