The early 6.30 pm kick off drew me in for a second visit to the Appleyard Sports ground (otherwise known as the UK Paper Sports Ground) to watch a Kent County League Division 1 fixture between AFC Rangers and Rochester City.

Appleyard Sports ground consists of two football pitches alongside a clubhouse and bar. The pitch quality was good but the match was scheduled to finish as the light faded as the ground lacks floodlighting. 32 spectators turned up for tonight’s game.

AFC Rangers had started the league season well, winning 4-0 in their opening home fixture against Whitstable Town U23’s. Goals in that game came from Daniel Ogedengbe, Abimbola Ovunyemi, Russell Torto-Doku and Sean Elkington, to set up a confident start to the season.

Rochester City opened their league season with a 2-3 away win at Greenways Aces. Their goals came from Oliver Hitchcock, Joshua Wheeler and Daniel Thomas.

The game opened up with both sides attacking furiously and coming close to scoring. In the 27th minute AFC Rangers broke the deadlock, when the ball was hit across the goal from the left for Alex Chaplin to finish, making it 1-0. The home side then had a period of ten minutes when they could have extended the lead but shots were taken too early and some good opportunities squandered.

In the 40th minutes the scores were level when Luke Barry stabbed the ball home for Rochester City after two scrambled chances and a decent save following a free kick. At the break the sides went in level at 1-1, with all three points clearly up for anyone to claim in the second half.

The second half swung from end to end with both sides having spells of domination. Just as the game looked to be ending as a draw, with seventy eight minutes on the clock, Rochester City were ahead 1-2 with a fine finish struck first time on the run, from their number ten (name unknown).

Despite heavy pressure from AFC Rangers for the final ten minutes, it was Rochester City who kept up their 100% league record , walking away with three points, at full time.