Ramsgate go fourteen clear, Lancing go third, and Herne Bay climb to sixth

With grass across the South East developing the texture of green concrete last night, we were lucky in that three of our scheduled matches were on 3G pitches- and we were also lucky that each of them was rather crucial to the promotion race.

Our leaders Ramsgate had to come from two goals down to defeat Burgess Hill Town at the weekend, and they had to do it again at Ashford United last night. The Nuts and Bolts got off to a flyer, Connor Dymond scoring his first goal of the season after a goalmouth scramble in the ninth minute, and midway through the half a breakaway goal from Vance Bola- who moves into double figures for the season- made it two.

The Rams got back into the game just before the break, Joe Taylor fouled in the box, and of course the deadliest marksman in the league got up and scored from the spot- his thirty fourth of the campaign. The visitors levelled with twenty one minutes to go, good work from Benny Bioletti and Wes Hennessey setting up Alfie Paxman to finish, and just four minutes later Taylor was at it again, taking his tally to thirty five and putting his side ahead for the first time, three-two.

A few minutes later the hosts went down to ten men, Dymond completing a rather mixed night by collecting a red card, and that was that.

The Rams have a fourteen point lead at the top, although second place Cray Valley PM do have four games in hand and will hope to make them count. Image of Taylor scoring the winner from One Scope Productions- via the Rams.

Lancing’s superb form continued, as they defeated Hythe Town at Culver Road. Going into last nights match only Cray Valley had a better defensive record than the Cannons, and it was no surprise when the first half ended goalless, but within ten minutes of the restart the Lancers had pierced that backline twice. To be fair to the hosts, they did get the ball in the net in the first half, Ben Pope’s effort disallowed, but the next one counted- and it went to George Taggart, who was on the end of a fine run from Alex Laing and a good pass from Pope, and finished confidently.

Ten minutes later Lukas Franzen-Jones made it two, his thirteenth of the season proving anything but unlucky. Again Laing was involved, and Franzen-Jones did the rest, finding the corner. The Cannons were quickly back in the game, Johan Caney-Bryan halving the arrears only three minutes later, heading home a corner- but that was as good as it got for the visitors.

Lancing climb to third- and having already defeated the leaders this month, on Saturday they welcome second place Cray Valley. Millers beware! The Lancers have only one defeat- and eight wins- from their last ten matches.

Herne Bay travelled to Chichester City, and returned in sixth place- outside the top five only on goal difference. Bay’s third successive win started when Kane Rowland delivered his seventh goal of the season after twenty minutes, and- perhaps against the run of play- Rowland doubled the lead just after the hour. With a quarter of an hour left Gil Carvalho got his seventh of the season to make it three and remove any doubt about the outcome, and Joe Moore’s goal for City, which arrived four minutes from time, was no more than a consolation. City are eighth- and, rather peculiarly, four of their last five matches have ended three-one, three of them defeats.

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