Ryman League Division One South
Whitstable Town 2 Whyteleafe 2
A wild, bizarre and bewildering afternoon of football ended in crazy deadlock as Whitstable and Whyteleafe fought out a tempestuous 2-2 draw in knee-deep mud on Saturday.
Few could believe the game had been given the go-ahead in the morning – especially as a sizeable part of one penalty area resembled a hippo's wallowing hole – but play they did, and what followed was anything but dull.
Before the travelling Leafe faithful had even had time to put up the flags, their heroes had raced breathlessly into a two-goal lead. The first came in the 4th minute courtesy of Sam Clayton, who received the ball 25 yards out and unleashed a wonder-strike into the top right-hand corner of Luke Watkins' goal. The Oystermen's keeper had been the match-saver in the reverse fixture, but he could do nothing about this screamer.
The Leafe Army had barely finished celebrating before it was 2-0, on the 7-minute mark. A corner from the right by Jason Thompson eluded everyone to reach the far post, where lurked star marksman Roscoe D'Sane. He organised his feet well in the morass and squeezed the ball home between Watkins and his near post for his 17th goal of another prolific campaign.
Despite the quick start, it was never going to be an easy lead to defend given the conditions, which brought a sense of randomness to proceedings throughout the afternoon. The neat passing game that Leafe have tried to develop on their 3G pitch at home was never going to be possible here – this required a very different skill set. The rolling ball could not be trusted as it bobbled, bounced and stuck in the mud. Those launched into the air were landing on the surface with all the life of a medicine ball on a beach. And keeping one's footing at all, never mind when running or turning, was proving a challenge in itself.
This was a proper afternoon of old-fashioned non-league football – and it took a Ronnie Radfordesque strike to haul Whitstable back into it on 19 minutes. Scott Heard let fly from range, and with Sheikh Ceesay rooted to the spot and seemingly unable to lift his feet out of the slop, the shot flew into the far corner. For all that the pitch inhibited good play, the first quarter of the game had produced two goals of some quality.
On 25 minutes, Whitstable had a shout for a penalty waved away, but there then followed a decent spell of pressure from Leafe that, had it resulted in a third goal for the visitors, would surely have proved a turning point. Dsane had a tame shot saved just after the half-hour mark, but the best chance came two minutes later. Jason Henry and Bentley Graham exchanged passes to release Henry on goal, but his attempted chip over the advancing Watkins was smartly parried by the keeper, who was once again proving a thorn in Leafe's side. Just before half-time, another Clayton rifle fizzed just wide.
Whitstable started the second half with purpose and, within three minutes, they were level. A ball across the six-yard box from the right found Tom Loynes, who bundled home from fairly close range. At that point, with the pitch becoming more and more churned, and a palpable shift in momentum, anything seemed possible in the remaining 42 minutes – and yet few could have predicted what followed.
In the 54th minute, Sol Patterson-Bohner was shown the red card for a second bookable offence, though whether either of his fouls deserved a booking was debatable given the difficulty everyone was having staying on their feet. It was Leafe's first red card of the season and it brought a tactical change as Henry went off and Tommy Smith came on at right back. Four minutes later, Dylan Merchant was rightly cautioned for an uncompromising foul that terminated a Whitstable breakaway.
More baffling, though, was the caution on 70 minutes that brought Merchant his second yellow card and Leafe their second red in 16 minutes. There seemed to be doubts over whether a Whitstable attacker had gone down as a result of a Merchant tackle or the deteriorating surface, but the referee clearly saw both an infringement and intent, and saw fit to reduce Leafe to nine men for the remaining 20 minutes. Another change aimed at shoring up the defence saw DSane replaced by Tom Pratt, leaving Shawn Lyle as an isolated figure up front.
As expected, Whitstable enjoyed a huge edge in possession and territorial advantage in the time that remained, but while they spent most of it camped in the Leafe third of the pitch, they failed to really test Sheikh Ceesay in the visitors' goal. Leafe's revised formation of 7-0-1 proved stubborn enough to hold a line on the edge of their box, and any attempt on goal was blocked at source by some desperate last-gasp defending. Lyle ran himself into the ground giving his defenders an outlet on the occasions that they were able to break, but as conditions began to take their toll, so legs began to tire, though hearts stayed strong.
It was on one of Leafe's tentative forays forward that the referee produced one last surprise in the closing minutes. Bentley Graham – booked for dissent in the red-card madness of earlier – clumsily brought a Whitstable defender to the ground, and the referee had no hesitation in producing a third red card of the afternoon. It was a last kick in the teeth for the Leafe, but the eight still on the pitch refused to bow to what seemed the inevitability of a late Whitstable winner and held on gamely for a valuable point. Worryingly though, this was the third time already in 2015 that Leafe have surrendered a two-goal lead and not won.
With Worthing beating Hastings at home, Leafe fall five points behind the south coast side in the race for fifth spot, although with a game in hand. Worthing have the chance to pull further clear when they travel to Chipstead in midweek, while Leafe next play at home on Saturday, in what is sure to be another blood and thunder contest against bitter local rivals Merstham.
WHYTELEAFE: Ceesay, Patterson-Bohner, Bird, Thompson, Merchant, Graham, Lyle, Grant, DSane (Pratt), Henry (Smith), Clayton. SUBS: Andrews, Smith, Fowler, Pratt, Penfold.
NEXT MATCH:
Whyteleafe v Merstham (Church Road, Whyteleafe) Ryman League South, Saturday 24 January, 3pm
