For my first Southern Counties East Football League (Premier Division) fixture of the new year, I travelled to Potyns Field, home of Snodland Town, to watch their fixture with Rusthall, who play in Tunbridge Wells.

Snodland Town sat in ninth place in the league, with 32 points from 18 games. They were seven points behind the last play off placed team, Erith Town, but having played three games less. As manager Luke Wallond would have reminded his team, a good run at this stage in the season would see Snodland Town push up into the play off places, which would be quite an achievement, given this is their first season since gaining promotion from Division 1. Ed Mbango, Jeff Duah- Kessie (both 5 goals) and Matt Gething (4 goals) have top scored for Snodland Town this season.

Rusthall FC have struggled this season, sitting in eighteenth place with just 16 points from 22 games, prior to kick off. Manager Jimmy Anderson would know that a win today would help lift the away side out of the relegation places. Rusthall’s Tarik Ibrahim (6 goals) and Valeriu Gurgurov (4 goals) have been their top scorers this season.

The match opened with the heavy and wet pitch obviously affecting the ability of both teams to be able to pass and run with the ball. It was clear that goals would be hard to come by and that any side going into the lead would be taking a huge advantage.

In the 20th minute it was the home side who took the lead with a rifled finish from inside the box by Isaac Thompson, securing the lead for Snodland Town at 1-0.

Rusthall had a chance cleared off the line on 38 minutes, when Ezekiel Edoda rounded Sam Freeman, the Snodland Town keeper and attempted to slide the ball home.

At half time the teams went in with Snodland Town holding a slender lead at 1-0, as the rain returned falling hard to make an already difficult surface even harder to play on.

The second half saw a Rusthall resurgence, with Martin Youngah acting as a creative force to enable space for Tariq Ibrahim and Kalani Barton to put pressure on the Snodland back four.

Snodland Town had chances too to extend their lead, with substitute Jeff Duah-Kessie finding himself in on goal twice in the second half, once blazing the ball over and then seeing his shot stopped by Sanneh in the Rusthall goal.

At the fulltime whistle it was Snodland Town who took all three points, in front of their 185 crowd today, securing their push towards the SCEFL Premier Division play off spots. Rusthall’s players will know they can climb the table with more performances like this, but will, nonetheless, be disappointed to have worked so hard, yet to come away empty handed.