SITTINGBOURNE 0

FISHER ATH (LONDON) 1

Der Marten's Eastern Division

This long awaited clash between Sittingbourne and Sittingbourne "old boys" in the guise of Fisher Athletic was something of an anti climax. The crowd was also below that expected with only 250 venturing to Central Park. Fisher, however, are lucky if they get 100 at their Docklands stadium so they probably thought it was a good turn out!

Sittingbourne were still without Tom Berry, Neil Miller, Tommy Binks, Ben Taylor, Paul Carlton and Michael Cassar through injury. To slightly compensate for this, Margate player and ex Brickie, Tommy Planck lined up alongside Tyrone King.

Fisher paraded three ex Sittingbourne Captains in Lloyd Hume, Scott Saunders and Ricky Pearson as well as ex Brickie and last years player of the year, Sam Tydeman.

Fisher certainly didn't play like a team who have had a marvelous recent run that has taken them up to 4th place in the Dr Marten Eastern Division. They played the familiar Walker style game employing an off side trap with the last man, Hume, often in the Bourne half! If only Sittingbourne had a player of pace, Fisher would surely have been in trouble. As it was, Tommy Planck, the most likely of the front men to take advantage of Fishers tactics, looked like a player well short of match pactice and fitness. In fact, on one occasion even Pearson, not noted for his pace, beat Planck over ten yards.

There was little to chose between the teams and the goal, when it came deep into the second half, was rough justice on a Bourne team who had the best two chances of the night. Firstly, after 32 minutes of the first half, Robert Owen burst through the Fisher defence and with only Munden to beat he hit the ball straight at the keeper. The ball then rebounded back to Owen who by now was too wide of the goal to get a good shot in. The second Bourne gilt edged chance came midway into the second half. For once, Harrison crossed with his right foot. The ball landed right at Hodge's feet. He somehow managed to scoop it over the bar from point blank range when it seemed easier to score. To be fair to him, the ball was whipped in at quite a pace and it probably took him by surprise.

Before Owen's chance, Fisher's Huck connected with a pass from Charles and Creed pulled of a great save, pushing the ball wide of his goal. Shortly after this, Clout was booked for an innocuous challenge on a Fisher player. Later in the second half, Clout performed a much worse challenge that the Referee, Mr Hayto, chose to ignore.

The second half started with a caution for Tydeman for a foul on Hodge. Bourne then put some pressure on Fisher. Firstly, Harrison ran through the middle and passed to Planck. His shot was well held by Munden as a couple of Bourne players came rushing in. Then Hodge went on one of his runs, beat a couple of players but unfortunately for the Bourne, took the ball too wide of the Fisher goal and hit his shot into the side netting.

The only goal of the match came in the 78th minute when Bryn Charles walked round the ball defence and hit a low shot to the right of Creed in the Bourne goal.

Just one more chance for Sittingbourne after this, coming after 84th minutes, when a cross found Hodge but his header landed safely in Munden's arms. Shortly after this, Hodge was cautioned for a foul.

So then a narrow victory to Fisher when a draw would have been a fairer result. For the Bourne though, there was some encouragement in that they ran a high flying team so close and they were still missing five regular first team members out through injury.

Report by John Pitts

TODAY'S TEAMS

Sub used *

Attendance: 250

Referee: Mr J M Hayto

Assistants: Mr G Palmer

                  Mr S Pryor

Conditions: Dry, Windy