Advantage Hashtag

Brentwood Town relinquished their fifth place to visitors Hashtag United at the Arena last night. The Tags had lost only one of their previous eight, and now it’s one defeat in nine, as they completed their revenge for their early season three-one defeat to Town at the Len Salmon in winning by the same scoreline in Brentwood.

The visitors got off to a flyer. Jermain Francis put them ahead after just three minutes, Luke Hirst doubled the advantage on eighteen, and three minutes later Francis scored again to make it three. That finally woke the hosts, but it took them until sixty four minutes to get one back, Ashley Nzala with that one, and that was that. The Tags now have a three point advantage on their hosts and are only a point behind fourth place Grays Athletic- but both Brentwood Town and Felixstowe and Walton United, level on fifty one points, have two games in hand.

The gap between Brentwood, Felixstowe and eighth place AFC Sudbury will now be concerning the first two members of that trio, as it is down to one point after the Yellows defeated the Seasiders at the Goldstar Ground. Reece Harris put Sudbury ahead just after the half hour, Jamie Shaw made it two six minutes after the break, and the United consolation arrived too late for it to make much of a difference, Joshua Hitter scoring right at the end. That’s seven games unbeaten for the Yellows, and that late consolation was the first goal they’ve conceded in any of them. Promotion form? We shall see!

Image courtesy of Steve Screech.

Third place Aveley could have hit the top of the table had they won at Maldon & Tiptree. The two had already met three times this season, in the League (Aveley win), the FA Cup (Aveley win) and the Velocity Trophy (Maldon win), and it seems they’d got the measure of each other as neither could score last night. The Millers are fourteen games unbeaten, but a point behind leaders Canvey Island, now having played the same number of matches.

Coggeshall Town hosted Tilbury as fourteenth played thirteenth, and they’d changed places by the end. Dylan Logan got his fifth goal in six matches midway through the first half, and that turned out to be the only goal of the game. The Dockers saw their chances of a comeback recede when keeper Lamar Johnson saw red fourteen minutes from time, and so it proved.

Follow the Pitching In Isthmian League on Instagram. Head here or search for theisthmianleague on your app. We're also on Facebook and Twitter.