Tunbridge Wells 0-0 Erith & Belvedere - We'll have a number of full-time first-team players and we'll go and attack that division with my knowledge of that level and having a full pre-season, says title-winning Erith & Belvedere manager Matt Longhurst

Tunbridge Wells 0 – 0 Erith & Belvedere
Location	Culverden Stadium, Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 9SG
Kickoff	17/04/2023 19:45

TUNBRIDGE WELLS  0-0  ERITH & BELVEDERE
Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division
Monday 17 April 2023
Stephen McCartney reports from Culverden Stadium

ERITH & BELVEDERE manager Matt Longhurst says the club will have a number of full-time first-team players next season after grabbing the point they needed to win the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division title tonight.

The Deres have collected 82 points from their 36 (of 38) league games and Longhurst has won four, drawn two and lost one of his seven games in his second-spell in charge of the club and has gate-crashed his first league title of his managerial career.

However, there can’t be too many league champions in the history of English football that have gone through three managers during the course of the season, after the club parted ways with Tony Beckingham and Andy Constable.

But a goal-less stalemate at tenth-placed Tunbridge Wells (50 points from 36 games) ensured Erith & Belvedere will be playing Isthmian League football for the first time since 2014.

“Look, at the end of the day, we got brought in to do a job and that’s what we’ve done, we’ve accomplished that job,” said Longhurst.

“Adrian Deane’s gone to book my flats for my chartered plane that he promised me if I got them promoted so I’ve made sure that he gets on the phone now and gets that booked.

“We changed the squad, we made a big decision, the club made a big decision in changing the manager.  They asked me to come and do the job and asked me to get them over the line.  We changed the squad, which the club shown quite a lot of character and big balls changing the manager at such a stage of the season and we’ve shown the same amount of balls to make some changes to the squad.

“I’m delighted for (owners), Adrian Deane, Sam Prett, Paul Springett and James Lyons. They’ve ultimately taken over a football club that was on it’s knees, certainly financially and they’ve done the bar up, they’ve brought some youth in and brought some structure to it and now they’ve got themselves in the Isthmian League.

“I’m pleased that I’ve been able to come in as the manager and help deliver that with the players who were already here from the start of the season and some of the new additions that have come in and have been brilliant.”

This game was postponed on Saturday and was hastily-arranged for a Monday night but the 251 fans inside Culverden Stadium witnessed a poor quality game and Tunbridge Wells were the better side.

Tunbridge Wells boss Luke Carpenter said: “For me, it’s about focusing on our performance.  I thought we played well tonight. It’s always going to be a tough game.

“They’re coming here to win the league. They could’ve been complacent or jubilant and we nullified that and we sapped the energy out of them and made it less of a fun night for them because we’ve put in a good, hearty performance and it’s one that I feel that’s been coming and been owed and that we’re very capable of and haven’t been showing.

“I’m proud of the performance we had tonight because a lot of people stood up.”

Both managers were asked what their game plan was for tonight.

Carpenter said: “We wanted to win the game, I’m not going to lie.  We beat them once this season (5-1) and then second game in the Kent Senior Trophy that we lost we felt was down to two very, very silly errors and we actually dominated that game.

“We felt they were beatable.  I saw a couple of things on their arrival that I felt they would be complacent a bit so I wanted to go for them.  We have a saying ‘we don’t fear anyone but we will respect them’ and that’s been the case with tonight.

“The pitch was in much better condition so we were able to get back to be able to play the football that we spent a whole pre-season working towards so that kind of helped. 

“Tactically we had a bit of a game plan that I won’t reveal that was able to combat them.  One of the main points I would say, we tasked Jack Palmby with following Billy Bennett wherever he went pretty much.”

Longhurst added: “Get out of here as quick as we possibly can! Difficult pitch.  I thought Tunbridge Wells were better than us, if I’m honest.  I thought they were bright in midfield.

“We were coming down to Tunbridge Wells on a Monday night on a very difficult pitch when they have nothing to play for so they can go and play with no fear.  I thought it looked a little bit like that.

“I didn’t think there was a great deal of quality in the game.  We set up to try to get our wide players in the game and against a 3-5-2 it suited that.  I don’t think we produced any amounts of quality whatsoever.  It was just to come here and get a result, which we done.”

The opening exchanges were cagey and Tunbridge Wells went close to grabbing the lead inside the opening 15 minutes, courtesy of Robbie Bissett, who plays on the left of a three-man defence.

Right-wing-back Frank Griffin threw the ball to Connor Pring (who pulls the strings in midfield) and he played a square 20-yard pass inside to an unpressed  Bissett, who drilled a left-footed drive screaming just past the foot of the left-hand post from 35-yards.

Carpenter said: “I thought the first half was quite even to be honest. There wasn’t a lot being created either way.

“I thought we defended their direct play very well. Marcus Elliott is a very tricky striker and I thought Tommy Smith stood up to that. 

“I thought we played some good football. We didn’t create loads of chances but I thought Jordan Sarfo looked a threat down the right-hand side, beat their left-back time and time again.

“It was pleasing more for things that have been missing from us recently in terms of heart, desire and determination.

“Robbie’s hit that very well to be fair. Normally I’ll be saying ‘don’t shoot there, be patient,’ but actually I just felt ‘go on, hit it!’ He struck it very well, it stayed hit.”

Erith & Belvedere striker Marcus Elliott was in the pocket of Tommy Smith and Billy Bennett was also kept quiet by Jack Palmby, as Erith & Belvedere failed to impress, especially having scored 93 league goals this season.

Left-back Makhosini Ryan Khanye floated a deep corner from the left and Billy Bennett came around the corner before poking a shot harmlessly wide of the near post from a tight angle in the 27^th minute.

Elliott jumped out of Smith’s pocket and had the away side’s only real chance of the first-half in the 33^rd minute.

Left-winger Prince Domafriyie released Elliott in behind Griffin and the striker drilled a left-footed rasping drive into Jacob Bennett’s midriff from 20-yards.

“That was probably our only chance in the first half and there wasn’t any in the second half really,” admitted Longhurst.

The best thing about the first half was when it was brought to an end, courtesy of the half-time whistle blown by referee Tom George.

Carpenter said: “We needed more of the same but more. It wasn’t enough to sit on that.  My exact words were ’45 minutes of that is no good if we go and throw it away now.’

“Concentration is key and we felt that we could attack and be more of a goal threat and go and attack and get at them.”

Longhurst said:  “I just said to the players ‘we looked a little bit shocked that Tunbridge Wells are having a go’.

“I felt we were a little bit ‘we should just turn up and these teams should just come and let us win the league’ and that’s what’s not going to happen and I thought we looked a little bit disappointed.

“Look, it’s a really tough place to come here, the pitch is very, very difficult. It’s really difficult. It looks better from the side but when you’re on it, it’s very, very soft and it’s difficult to play on for both teams and I thought if I’m honest it would’ve been a better game on a better pitch because we could’ve played a bit more football.

“I thought they were alright but I thought second half we had the ball most of the time, without really doing anything with it.”

An example of the poor quality from Erith & Belvedere came after 134 seconds into the second half.

Billy Bennett’s side-footed pass was swept out to right-winger Anthony Adesite, who lacked composure and lashed a poor shot high, high, high over the bar from 18-yards, as Bissett opened the gate.

Adesite missed a glorious chance to grab Erith & Belvedere the lead in the seventh minute, however.

Domafriyie hung over a cross from within the left channel, Bennett flicked the ball on and Adesite stabbed his shot straight at Jacob Bennett’s feet from inside the six-yard box.

“I think he should score, I think he has got to score if I’m honest,” said Longhurst.

“The other thing we said to the players at half-time was you’re not going to get loads and loads of chances because of the pitch is so difficult to pass it.  You can’t create lots of chances so when they do come, you’re going to need to take them.  I think Anthony should’ve taken that if I’m honest.”

Carpenter added: “How he hasn’t pulled the trigger earlier, I don’t know. I thought it was offside to be fair.  I don’t know how he hasn’t scored there. He just seemed to take forever to shoot.”

Carpenter revealed the reason behind being without their 28-goal talisman striker Trevor McCreadie tonight.

“Trevor rolled his ankle at Fisher so three games in six days is ludicrous at the best of times so we couldn’t risk playing him tonight and then not having him available or putting him out of work, so we’ve got to be sensible with all of the players.”

Left-wing-back James Nurden was withdrawn in the 61^st minute after suffering with tight calves and being treated during the half-time interval.

Substitute left-winger Johnny Phillips pinged a long diagonal from left to right to pick out right-wing-back Jordan Sarfo, who hung over a cross towards the near post where striker Festos Kamara never looked like adding to his two-goals this season, looping his header past the near post.

Erith & Belvedere’s right-back Jude Russell travelled over the half-way line with the ball before releasing Domafriyie who was in space inside the Tunbridge Wells box before slipping over and the ball rolling into the gloves of a goalkeeper who was excellent plucking the ball out of the air, especially from Lewis Chambers’ 10 long throws into the box.

This awful game needed a spark and Tunbridge Wells finally decided they could complete a league double over their opponents as the game went into the final 20 minutes.

Carpenter said: “We felt a little bit more confident to grow into the game. We felt as the game went on they would push more and more and there would be room to exploit but I don’t know if they did necessarily push more.

“We kind of had that switch that we can flip and knew that at some point we were going to have a go.  The boys did it themselves.”

Longhurst said: “Look once you get to 70 minutes they haven’t got anything to lose have they?  One of their players said after the game ‘you lot aren’t very good!’  A draw away from home when you’re trying to win the league is a good point and it’s not always an easy place to come anyway, but I thought they had a go. I’ve got to give credit to them.  I thought they were better than us with the football but did they hurt us? Not really, no. I don’t think they did.”

However, Erith & Belvedere should have snatched the victory following a quality delivery, coming in from the left-foot of Khanye following their third corner of the night.

It was swung in and Elliott found a pocket of space in the centre of the goal-mouth but he steered his header over Jacob Bennett’s crossbar.

“He’s got to score, he’s got to hit the target. I think he got underneath it and I think that was a little bit of the story of the night to be honest,” added Longhurst, the recent manager of Ramsgate and Burgess Hill Town in the Isthmian League South East Division.

The crossbar denied Tunbridge Wells the winner with 34:59 on the clock, following the home side’s fourth corner.

Pring’s right-footed delivery from the left was also on the money and with goalkeeper Jordan Perrin flapping, substitute centre-half Daniel Tear’s header clipped the underside of the crossbar before the ball was cleared.

Carpenter said: “Do you know what?  I don’t know how it didn’t go in!

“We’ve worked a lot on set-pieces and we haven’t notoriously followed it well enough this year. We switched off and done our own things, which I’ve not really liked. 

“I spoke about it at K Sports and again at Fisher and we ended up scoring from one at Fisher eventually and we were close a couple of times tonight so hopefully the boys will start having a well-worked set-piece.”

Longhurst added: “It was one of them.  We had a couple of them, they had a couple of them.  There wasn’t any great deal of real quality.  It was terrible.

“At this stage of the season, I’ve gone against a lot of my principles in the way that I want to play and my teams have always played but we had to do that at this stage.

“We haven’t had a lot of time on the training ground and to bring so many new players in and get them to get results and play on the pitches that we’re playing on.”

The visiting goalkeeper pulled off a brilliant save to deny Tunbridge Wells a last-gasp winner with 47:52 on the clock.

Substitute striker Jacob Feasey spun to drill a right-footed shot sailing towards the top right-hand corner from 30-yards, only for Perrin to fly high to his left to push the ball around the post.

“What a strike that was I mean you can never see fully from the angle we’re at but it looked like it was going in the top corner as well, so the keeper has earned his money tonight on the back of that alone,” said Carpenter.

“On the balance of play, I’ll probably say it was probably a fair result.  Chances created, I would personally say we were the better side and I felt we created the better chances as well, so from our point of view the focus wasn’t on stopping them winning the league, the focus was on trying to get us points.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. We play 38 league games in a season. We don’t retire after 33 or 34 if you’ve got nothing to play for. It’s get as many points and as high a league position as possible.”

Longhurst said: “It was a great save and that ultimately gets the title over the line because that’s right at the end because we didn’t look like scoring tonight.

“One of the pleasing things is we had to keep a clean sheet and I think the concentration levels is difficult.  Have they really tested us as a team? I didn’t think they had but at the end of the day the goalkeeper has made a good save and that’s what he’s there to do.”

Erith & Belvedere get their hands on the trophy on Wednesday night when Deal Town visit Park View Road, before they end their campaign with a trip to second-from-bottom side Canterbury City on Saturday.

“We want to win both,” said Longhurst.

“For the integrity of the game, we’ll be strong on Wednesday because ultimately Deal can still go above Phoenix if they win their games so I would never, ever, ever send out a weakened team never, it’s not me. I want to be in football a long time so that will definitely not happen and I want Phoenix and Deal to know that.

“We will be as strong as we can be. Obviously, there’s going to be some tired legs. We had a game tonight on a very heavy pitch but we’ve left out Henry Burnett and Kie Douglas tonight and we’ve got a number of players that are on the bench. We’ve got (18-goal striker) Danny Lear to come back from suspension after tonight so they will play, so we will freshen the team right up and you will see a different type of performance because we will now play at home on Wednesday night, now that the title is done.”

Punjab United humiliated Deal Town 6-0 in the Kent Senior Trophy Final on Sunday.

Tunbridge Wells welcome Punjab United to Culverden Stadium on Wednesday, before ending their campaign in Gillingham at Hollands & Blair on 22 April.

“It’s going to be a tough game.  When we went to play them away it was shortly before they started bringing in some good boys, so I know the game away was going to be really tough.  They’re a good side, they’ve got some good players over there and it’s not going to be an easy game,” warned Carpenter.

“We have to rotate our squad. It’s going to have an impact on legs and recovery so we’ve got Geogia Loscombe our physio on the case trying to help with nutrition and recovery starting tonight. That’s going to have a big part to play for the remainder of the season for us.

“We’ve got Punjab in 48 hours and then we get tow days rest and then we’re back at Hollands & Blair away, which isn’t going to be an easy game.”

When asked about being in tenth-place in the pecking order, Carpenter replied: “Am I happy? No! I won’t be happy unless I’m first but I have to be realistic. I’d like to be higher. I’d like to be in a better position but we’re not.

“I’m ambitious. I want to go for everything but there is that element of being realistic. I’ve got to sit down with the chairman and the board and discuss what position we’re in. We’re still recovering from the clubhouse fire we had so it’s not easy to go ‘yes, we’ll be doing this.’

“I need to know what we’re going to have available (budget wise), what resources are going to be available, the facilities are also an attraction.

“Let’s not ignore the budgets that are flying around already. The teams coming down and also the teams coming up so if you look at that, it’s not going to be easy, so we’ve got to be sensible.

“For me to be able to comment right now what we’re going to be like next year is difficult – but everything I want to do, I want to win. I don’t care who’s it against.”

Meanwhile, the fight continues for second-place and a shot at promotion via the play-off against a Step Four struggler (29 April.).

Phoenix Sports (75 points, two games left), Deal Town (74 points, two games left) and Erith Town (74 points, one game left) are the three sides involved.

For Erith & Belvedere, Longhurst will certainly do better than in 2013-2014 when the club lost Micky Collins in the summer after winning this division due to being handed a poor budget and the club finished at the foot of the Isthmian League Division One North table to spend nine seasons in the ninth-tier.

“I would imagine by 5:30pm on Saturday there will be a lot of players that are already contacting me, once they know that we are now up and I want to go and have a real (go),” said Longhurst.

“We’ll sit down as a club now and we’ll go and attack that division with my knowledge of that level of football and having a full pre-season. 

“We’ve got a lot of building to do as a club on and off the pitch to get us to a Isthmian League club but the boys that own the club are extremely excited.

“I’ve got broad enough shoulders and I’ve dealt with lots of different chairman and lots of different types of character and I think my experience in dealing with that situation shows is we were under pressure when I came in but I left Burgess Hill to come and take this job and having the balls to come and take it.”

Erith & Belvedere’s playing budget is expected to be the largest in the club's history next season.

“The owners want to go again. They want to do what Chatham have done (win back-to-back promotions, having been crowned Isthmian League South East Division champions).  They’ve got the finances to be able to do so.

“Chatham’s a proper football club and if we want to do the same we’ve got to do the same.  We’ve got more youth teams coming in next year, the owners have secured a training ground (at Footscray Rugby Club) where all the youth teams and first team will train and we’ll have soccer schools next year.

“We’ll have a number of full-time first-team players so there’s a lot of work that’s going on in the background already, which I’ve been helping them with, which obviously I did at Ramsgate.

“That’s my first one (league title).  I said to the owners when I came in, my job was to make sure that I’m an Isthmian League manager come the 1 July in pre-season.

“The winning of the trophy or everything is for the boys that have been here since the start of the season and for the owners of the football club.  It’s not easy owning a football club, they’ve come under a lot of scrutiny and a lot of abuse for the decisions they’ve made but they’ve made all of those decisions for the best of the football club and ultimately that is what they’ve got to do. It happens down from the Premier League down to this league.”

Tunbridge Wells: Jacob Bennett, Jordan Sarfo (Dominic Welsh 73), James Nurden (Johnny Phillips 61), Tommy Smith (Daniel Tear 67), Frank Griffin, Robbie Bissett, Jack Palmby, Connor Pring, Festos Kamara, Rhys Bartlett (Jacob Feasey 74), Billy Lewins.
Sub: Jack Walder

Booked: Tommy Smith 41, Robbie Bissett 75, Frank Griffin 84

Erith & Belvedere: Jordan Perrin, Jude Russell, Makhosini Ryan Khanye, Ryan Johnson, Jahmal Howlett-Mundle, Rob Strachan, Prince Domafriyie, Lewis Chambers, Marcus Elliott, Billy Bennett, Anthony Adesite (Tyrell Richardson-Brown 64).
Subs: George Monger, Damian Niemczycki, George Snelling, Ben Wilson

Booked: Anthony Adesite 44, Jude Russell 81

Attendance: 251
Referee: Mr Tom George
Assistants: Mr Michael Corderoy & Mr Joshua Cloake