VCD Athletic 1-1 Roffey - We just wasn't at the races at all but we've had a job to do today and we got through by our skin of our teeth, admits VCD Athletic joint-manager Ross Baker

VCD Athletic 1 – 1 Roffey
Location	Oakwood, Old Road, Crayford, Kent DA1 4DN
Kickoff	19/10/2024 15:00

VCD ATHLETIC  1-1  ROFFEY
(VCD Athletic win 5-3 on penalties)
The Isuzu FA Vase First Round
Saturday 19 October 2024
Stephen McCartney reports from Oakwood

VCD ATHLETIC joint-manager Ross Baker says his side got through to The FA Vase Second Round by the skin of their teeth as goalkeeper Joe Hyde came out of retirement to save one penalty in the shoot-out.

 

Joint-managers Baker and Danny Joy have guided the Crayford-based outfit to the summit of the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division table, having picked up 10 wins and two draws from their 12 league outings.

VCD Athletic have beaten Westside (4-1) and Chipstead (3-0) both away from home to reach this stage of the competition, while this was Horsham based Roffey’s first and last FA Vase tie of the season.

Jointly-managed by Jack Munday and Jimmy Ferrar, Roffey arrived at Oakwood sitting in ninth-place in the Southern Combination League Premier Division table, having picked up 19 points (five wins, four draws and three defeats).

VCD Athletic made five changes to the side that came away from Croydon with a 4-0 win in the Kent Senior Trophy last weekend.

Goalkeeper Andy Walker, 42, was out with a knee injury, second-choice goalkeeper Toby Waller was cup-tied, as was winger Neil Spencer and seven-goal striker Bethel Gboda is serving a three match suspension.  Midfielder Zak Bryon was suffering from a bout of flu. Attacking midfielder Robbie Burton was withdrawn in the 75^th minute suffering from cramp.

The first half was a boring, cagey stalemate, played in temperatures of 16 degrees and beneath blue, sunny skies, on a pristine grass playing surface.

VCD Athletic smashed the stalemate through striker Ollie Freeman’s sixth goal for the club since his switch from league rivals Bearsted.

Roffey restored parity and levelled at the end through wide striker Jordan Mase’s ninth goal of the season.

Baker revealed his players’ did not practice taking penalties in training leading up to the game but all five converted theirs as Hyde saved the sixth of nine penalties to deny Roffey striker Ricardo Fernandes.

“It was hard work – I’ll be honest with you – it was hard work,” admitted Baker.

“They came with a game plan and they were very good at it to be fair to them. They sat in and they stopped us playing.  We didn’t get into any sort of rhythm today. Our patterns were off. We just wasn’t at the races at all but at the end of the day, we’ve had a job to do today and we got through by our skin of our teeth.

“We said on the pitch out there to the boys ‘it weren’t good enough’ and they’ve all accepted it that it wasn’t good enough and they even said ‘we know it’s not good enough and that’s the last time that sort of happens.’

“Look, you can’t be excellent every week at this level of football, so we’ll take that on the chin and we move onto Tuesday night.”

VCD Athletic played the first half at a slow tempo, playing crab football (backwards and sideways) and lacked ideas on how to break down an untroubled Roffey defence, who’s forward players failed to press VCD Athletic’s back four.

When asked what his game plan was, Baker replied: “Just keep hold of the ball, keep moving, what we’re good at. We do keep the ball well. We do move the ball in the right areas. We do look deadly going forward but today it was just an off day from start to finish.  We just had an off day today, that was it.

“We had a report on them that said they like to go forward quite quickly, so we kind of set up for that and they kind of threw us for five minutes by sitting in, which every manager does what they want to do so it took us 5-10 minutes to try to get in some kind of rhythm and then we just never got going, never got going.”

Both teams cancelled each other out until VCD Athletic created the first opening in the 34^th minute following a free-kick down the left touch-line.

Vickers’ left-winger Connor Kelly was fouled by Mase and holding midfielder Connor Dymond floated a quality delivery towards the near post which centre-half Harry Sargent rose and his header deflected over the crossbar.

Baker admitted:  “It was boring, I’ve got to be honest, it was boring but look, you can’t have excellent football every week can you?

“You have to do the boring stuff.  I mean I thought we moved the ball quite well in the first half-hour. I mean one or two of them got bored, I would’ve thought, of moving the ball and it kind of showed. It was a bit disjointed but we got the boys in at half-time, had a little rally round and said what we wanted to do and I thought we were probably the better side in the second half.”

Roffey counter-attacked and created the first half’s only real goalscoring chance in the 36^th minute, as the Sussex side got in behind Vickers’ left-back Tom Cousins and centre-half Sargent.

Fernandes was released before the striker played the ball back some 20-yards along the deck to James Pearse, who fed Mase, who was left unmarked and his right-footed drive from 25-yards was comfortably held by Hyde, saving low to his right to ensure the ball failed to nestle inside the bottom near corner.

“Hydie’s come in to do us a favour today. He unfortunately retired pre-season, obviously with Walks out injured, Toby Waller cup tied. He’s still on our books and he’s come in and it’s like he’s never been away really to be fair to him. He’s done well today.  His penalty save, everything that he’s had to do today, he’s done well,” said Baker.

Roffey summed up the lack of quality on show from both sides when they should have done much better with an opening just before half-time.

The four-goal attacking midfielder Tom Tolfrey broke before he played a diagonal pass over to Fernandes who played the ball inside to Mase, whose sublime turn in the box took him past last defender Michael Fenn but all he could do was sweep a poor left-footed shot harmlessly wide of the goal.

“Me personally, I feel Fenno should’ve done a little bit better with that. Maybe he switched off a little bit but like you say, it was a poor first half.  That could’ve gone anywhere. It could’ve gone in the top corner or it could’ve taken a man’s greenhouse out really,” added Baker.

Roffey centre-half Jack Poplett delivered a deep free-kick from close to the halfway line, which sailed in behind Richard Jimoh but Roffey’s left-back Shaun Findlay steered his header past the near-post from a tight angle.

The crowd of 88 inside Oakwood hoped for a better game in the second half.

“There were a few choice words that we’ve said but most importantly it wasn’t good enough. It was not acceptable,” admitted Baker.

“We’re a good footballing side and there were none of that on show first half. We just changed a few things tactically, what to do here, what to do there and I thought probably for the next half-hour, 35 minutes of the game, it worked.

“The game got a little bit stretched but all in all, look, it’s mine and Danny’s job to say a few things at half-time if thing’s ain’t going right and we’ve done it.”

Baker and Joy hooked right-back Joshua Leach and the five goal right winger Richard Jimoh at the interval, as their replacements, Harry Lawrence and Nathaniel Olawole offered more of a threat.

“We just wanted something different down the right-hand side.  Look, both of them have been in and out of the side.  They’re both good players and important to the club,” Baker said of the hooked pair.

“It’s a team game at the end of the day. If something’s not working, that we feel something’s not working, I should say, it’s our job to change it and we did and look at the end of the day we got through, so it worked in that degree.”

VCD Athletic produced a well-worked move down the right, which was worked to Dymond, who sliced his left-footed shot harmlessly wide of the far post from 30-yards in the 57^th minute.

The 30-year-old Dymond was often barking out instructions and demanding more from his team-mates during the game, something that Baker noticed.

“He gives us everything. His leadership skills are second to none.  He’s excellent in the changing room and on the training ground and he’s a leader on the pitch.

“Last season we were quite young and naïve and we’ve brought that little bit of experience (with Dymond and Walker) that we needed to try to push us on to the next level.”

The home side created a much better chance shortly afterwards when Olawole got the better of Roffey’s left-back Findlay before feeding Freeman, who cut in from the right into the middle and his left-footed angled drive from 25-yards rolled towards the near post where goalkeeper Montgomery Watson-Price comfortably picked up.

Baker said: “When Nathaniel gets the ball, he’s electric with it and things tend to happen and Nathaniel and Ollie link up well and they’re starting to form a good little partnership.  Bethel (Gboda) is suspended today but when the three of them are on fire, they’re a lot to handle.”

VCD Athletic smashed the stalemate by taking the lead with 15 minutes and 6 seconds on the second half clock.

Lawrence threw the ball in from the right and Olawole cut into the penalty area before holding composure to cut the ball back for Freeman, who rifled his right-footed drive in off the underside of the crossbar and into the back of the net to score from 16-yards.

“It’s no secret that me and Danny have been a big, big admire of Ollie for the last 18 months and it took us 18 months to sign him (from Bearsted),” said Baker.

“He does everything that says on the tin. He gets in the box, he scores goals, he links the play well. He’s the exact that we need for this football club and he’s reaping the benefits and so are we.

“He’s scored six this season, he’s only been here since August Bank Holiday, so he’s got a good return so far and I’m sure by the end of the season he’ll be in the top three of the goalscoring charts, no doubt.”

Roffey’s joint-managers switched to a back three at the halfway point of the second half - and they almost grabbed an equaliser in the 69^th minute.

Sargent fouled Fernandes some 40-yards from goal and Fernandes swept a right-footed high, hanging free-kick, which sailed over Hyde’s right shoulder and dipped before clipping the far post.

Centre-half Clyde Jacques poked the ball short to Mase, who sliced his first-time drive sailing over the Vickers’ crossbar from 18-yards in the second phase.

“Look, I’m not sure the geezer meant it to be fair to him.  If I speak to Hydie about it, he would’ve had it covered, so yes, I think it took everyone by surprise really,” added Baker.

Roffey found renewed confidence and Mase rolled the ball out to left-wing-back substitute Elliot Hanslow, whose initial shot was blocked before the ball fell to Mase, who sliced his first-time right-footed drive harmlessly wide of the far post from 20-yards.

“At that point, they started having to have a little bit more room than what we liked them to but the game got stretched,” explained Baker.

“There were more spaces for one or two to go in. I kind of feel off the ball today we wasn’t at our best. We allowed them to have too much time, too much space in certain areas and we spoke about that out there afterwards.  As long as the boys are learning and we are progressing from it, it’s football.”

VCD Athletic squandered a glorious chance to kill the game off with 28:06 on the clock, through left-winger Kelly, who has previous played for Newport IOW and Cowes Sports.

Substitute George Whitelock split open left-back now centre-half Findlay and Kelly stayed on his feet outside the box as Jake Le Grange tried to hack him down as the last defender.  Kelly managed to skip past the advancing keeper Watson-Price for the second time in this move and his shot rolled towards the goal-line, only for Le Grange to recover and clear the ball off the line.

“He was too honest for me. He’s been hacked down twice, outside the box and inside the box and he’s got to hit the deck.  If that happens against us, someone’s going to do it to us, so that’s how you’ve got to be,” said Baker.

“Connor’s been here a couple of weeks, a month now, and he’s exciting. He’s another good footballer here that loves the ball at his feet, loves to go at people and he’s another one I’m sure once he finds his feet here, he’ll be absolutely electric for us.

“He’s played out that way (Newport) and he’s moved back in the area and got in touch. He’s a lovely fella and he’s started to gel with the boys, which is good.”

Charlie Heatley came off the bench for VCD Athletic in the 70^th minute and added extra heart and desire in attack, with Kelly slotting behind him as the number 10, as Roffey upped their desire levels as they went in search for a late leveller at the other end.

Roffey produced a sweeping three-man move which included Fernandes, substitute Mason Saunders and Mase, who took a touch before sweeping his shot across the keeper and past the far post as he was left unmarked on the edge of the VCD Athletic box in the 88^th minute.

“They had two or three good movements, especially the eight (Fernandes), I thought he was a tidy footballer,” added Baker.

“Look, at the end of the day, you’re going to give up chances when the game gets stretched.  There’s a few tired legs out there through mistakes of our own but we’ve dealt with them, so we move on with that one.”

Roffey deservedly restored parity and levelled with 45:06 on the clock with a counter-attacking goal.

The impressive Mase played a one-two with Fernandes in the final third before Mase kept composed and sublimely dinked his right-footed shot over the advancing Hyde as the ball bounced into the empty net.

“I mean one or two of them were shouting offside but I think it was Harry Sargent who played him on slightly but look, if you’re not going to track your runners, you’re always liable to give up chances and that’s another thing we said, runners are massively important and at that time they just had a little bit more momentum and they got the goal,” said Baker.

“Look, I kind of thought if they were going to score at all today, it would be kind of late in the game and they proved us right but like I said, we got through by the skin of our teeth.

“They massively deserved that equaliser and to be fair to them, they probably had us under the cosh just before that and after it as well.  Take nothing away from them at all, they came here with a game plan. They hit us with their game plan as well and I said to their gaffer afterwards ‘you’ve got a good side there and hope to see you progress through the leagues.’  I was thoroughly impressed with them.”

VCD Athletic went close to winning it (50:54) following their fifth and final corner.

Dymond floated his right-footed delivery in from the left towards the back post where central midfielder Lee Bird hooked his acrobatic volley over his shoulder and just over the crossbar.

Baker said: “We were all jumping round, we all thought it was in. 

“Lee gives you that. He turns up in the right place sometimes. Sometimes he’s nowhere to be seen but when he does, you know something’s going to come out from him sometime.”

VCD Athletic centre-half Sargent took the first penalty, sending goalkeeper Watson-Price the wrong way with a right-footed emphatic penalty that nestled inside the bottom right-hand corner.

Roffey’s central midfielder Daniel Pearse levelled, also sending Hyde the wrong way, with a right-footed spot-kick, which he slotted into the bottom right-hand corner.

Dymond capped an impressive days work by giving VCD Athletic a 2-1 lead with a slice of luck. His weak right-footed penalty only just crept inside the bottom left-hand corner, despite the Roffey goalkeeper diving low to his right and getting his right-hand to the ball, only for the ball to cross the goal-line.

Mase stroked his right-footed penalty in off the base of the left-hand post to level the score after two penalties each.

Four-goal Heatley stepped up and placed a clinical right-footed penalty into the bottom left-hand corner, sending Watson-Price the wrong way once more.

Hyde - who is the fourth goalkeeper to play for VCD Athletic this season - dived low to his left and held Fernandes’ right-footed penalty, which the striker hoped would have nestled inside the bottom right-hand corner.

VCD Athletic centre-half Michael Fenn placed his right-footed penalty straight down the middle, as the Roffey goalkeeper dived to his left.

Roffey striker Devon Fender – who came on four minutes and 20 seconds into stoppage time at the end of the second half – rifled his right-footed penalty into the roof of the net, despite Hyde diving to his right but he was never going to save Roffey’s final spot-kick.

VCD Athletic booked their place in Monday’s Second Round Draw when Olawole’s right-footed penalty found the left-corner, with the goalkeeper diving to his left.

Reflecting on the penalty shoot-out, Baker was asked whether his players’ practised penalties in training leading up to the game.

“No, we’ve never practiced them, never practiced them no and I’ll be honest, I was quite shocked by all of them saying ‘we want it. We want one,’ so it’s all good.  It’s all character building. No one likes penalties, it’s a terrible way to lose. It ain’t the best way to win but having said that, our job today was to get in the next round and we’ve done it.

“In the bit before the penalties, I said to the boys, ‘we know what Joe’s about. There’s nobody better in a penalty shoot-out at this level of football in my opinion and it proved right.

“He’s come in and he’s done a job today.  I’ll be honest with you; I hope he doesn’t retire and I hope he sticks round and puts pressure on everyone else here.

“Andy Walker is our number one. He’s been phenomenal since he’s come in (from Phoenix Sports). He’s been out with a little injury. He should be back Tuesday night, so we’ll see what happens Tuesday.

“We’ve got young Toby Waller, who’s decent. I’d love Hydie to stay around. Why wouldn’t you want a fella with his capability and what he brings to the squad. 

“Moving forward, Andy Walker was signed as number one and will always be VCD’s number one.”

Baker and Joy take their side to Gravesend on Tuesday night to lock horns with Chipie Sian’s Punjab United, who suffered their first league defeat of the season by losing 4-2 at home to Ajay Ashanike’s Fisher today.

VCD Athletic remain at the summit with 32 points from their 12 games.

The four play-off places contain Faversham Town (27 points from 11 games), Punjab United (25 points from 12 games), Holmesdale (21 points from 16 games) and Corinthian (20 points from 11 games).

Fisher are in sixth-place tonight with 19 points from 13 games, while Punjab, Holmesdale and Corinthian all lost League games today.

“Look, it’s always tough going to Punjab, always.  They’ve got some ex-players, one or two that were here before, so there’s that little bit of thing,” said Baker, whose side have won 14, drawn three and lost just once in all competitions this season.

“Obviously being top-v-third, look, it’s always tough there. It’s not the nicest of places, that’s not being disrespectful.  They always make it hard for you. The committee and the people make it as welcoming they can do, which is lovely, but to play there, they make it hard work for you.

“We’ve got to go there with a job to do and I’m 100% sure my boys will do the job there that’s needed.

“Listen, we’re ecstatic with the start but as it stands we’re sat here top of the league but we’re not getting carried away with that at all.

“It’s lovely to be there, of course, we want to be there at the end of the season but we’ve still got a long way to go.

“We’re in all competitions bar The FA Cup. There’s a long way to go but we’re in the right direction.  We’re hard to beat, where last year at times, we wasn’t.

“The club wants to go up. We want to go up, of course we do.  Everyone wants to be successful. We’ll just take each day as it comes. We don’t get carried away with it.  All our focus is on the next game, which is Tuesday night.”

Baker was asked how his side will handle being the team that everybody wants to beat.

“Of course they do, that’s football. We just deal with it. We tell the boys; they’ve got to beat you. People want to beat us, so at this moment in time everyone who plays us, it’s their cup final, so we’ll hopefully keep doing what we do. If we get beat, we get beat and we’ll dust ourselves down and we go again but someone’s got to beat us.”

Looking ahead to The FA Vase Second Round on Saturday 9 November, Baker said: “I’d like a home tie. It’s lovely. Who doesn’t love the Vase at this level? It’s your glimmer of hope of tying to get to Wembley.  Is it going to happen? Who knows.  We’ll all excited being in the next round. It’s fantastic. It’s what it’s all about, so we hope for a home draw on Monday and go from there.”

Baker was asked how joint-management works with his long-standing mate Joy.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, me and Danny have been mates since kids, so it works.  We don’t agree with everything and you’re not going to agree with everything in life.  Ninety-five percent of things we agree on, so it works.  If it don’t then I don’t know, it just works mate.  If I don’t agree with something, we’ll go with Danny and we’ll see what happens. If it don’t work then we address it but as it stands it’s working, so we’re going alright.”

There were ugly scenes of crowd trouble after this awful game of football.

Referee Adekola Adeyemi showed a yellow card to Roffey centre-half Jacques from within a crowd of players after a melee after the penalties were concluded.

A blonde woman – the wife of one of the home side’s players – took offence for being told to “shut up you chav,” by the Roffey contingent, which lead the woman to storm down from the tv gantry, above the two dug-outs, to verbally confront the female physio of Roffey (who was standing within the technical area) from the bottom of the metal steps, just to the side of the away dug-out. 

Injured goalkeeper Walker, who was also watching the game from the gantry, walked down the steps to act as peace maker after the blonde woman threatened the Roffey physio with words like "I'll show you what a chav I am!", as the pair of women exhanged words.

This lead to several Roffey players to rush towards the dug-out and Roffey’s cap wearing joint-manager Munday stormed towards the flash point and called the VCD Athletic woman a ‘slut’, (other words were used during his exchange) while towering over the pitch perimeter fencing, with the roof of the dug-out to his very right.

The three match officials were standing around 20 yards away from the incident and Munday could serve a stadium ban if the officials submit this incident in their match report to The Football Association for his inappropriate behaviour, which has no place in football.

Baker was quizzed about the flash-point but declined to comment, adding: “I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t see it. I walked on the pitch, I heard a little scuffle. I don’t really know too much about it, so I don’t want to comment on something I don’t know about, so we’ll leave it at that.”

VCD Athletic: Joe Hyde, Joshua Leach (Harry Lawrence 46), Tom Cousins, Connor Dymond, Harry Sargent, Michael Fenn, Connor Kelly, Lee Bird, Ollie Freeman (Charlie Heatley 70), Robbie Burton (George Whitelock 75), Richard Jimoh (Nathaniel Olawole 46).

Goal: Ollie Freeman 61

Booked: Michael Fenn 84

Roffey: Montgomery Watson-Price, Jake Le Grange (Devon Fender 90), Shaun Findlay, James Pearse, Jack Poplett, Clyde Jacques, Ryan Ferrar (Elliot Hanslow 58), Daniel Pearse, Ricardo Fernandes, Tom Tolfrey (Mason Saunders 80), Jordan Mase.
Subs: Bailey Shorey, Riley Morgan

Goal: Jordan Mase 90

Booked: Ricardo Fernandes 64, Shaun Findlay 85, Jake Le Grange 86, Elliot Hanslow 90, Clyde Jacques 90

Attendance: 88
Referee: Mr Adekola Adeyemi
Assistants: Mr Mitchell Rolfe & Mr Simeon Joseph