Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
City unable to topple leaders
SCEL round-up
Canterbury City proved no match for Southern Counties East leaders Ashford United on Easter Monday.
Shaun Welford rattled the City bar and Jason Goodchild wasted a glorious chance to open the scoring before Ashford did break the deadlock on 24 minutes.
Chris Webber’s attempted clearance was charged down and Rory Hill surged into the box before slotting the ball past Daren Hawkes.
At the other end, Matt Martin forced an acrobatic save from George Kamurasi although Connor Partridge then had to clear off the line for Canterbury.
City levelled on 34 minutes, Martin stabbing the ball past Kamurasi but the hosts did lose Laurence Harvey to an injury sustained in the process of setting up the goal.
Canterbury played on with 10 men and paid the price when Welford ran through the middle to make it 2-1.
Things got even worse in stoppage-time when Stuart West scored while City waited in vain for an offside flag.
Elsewhere on Monday, Whitstable Town were beaten 2-1 at Lordswood.
Adam Hooper’s opener for the hosts was cancelled out by Kane Rowland on the half-hour but Jordan Wells netted the winner for Lordswood on 68 minutes.
That followed a 1-0 win for Whitstable at home to Erith Town on Saturday when a bizarre own goal settled proceedings.
Just two minutes had been played when Erith goalkeeper Rilwan Anibaba slipped, allowing Luqman Adesina’s backpass to roll past him into the net.
A poor game produced few good chances, with Dan Eason saving well from Nathan Palmer to deny Erith an equaliser.
Canterbury were beaten 4-1 at Sevenoaks on Saturday, the hosts going ahead through a deflected Billy Bennett strike on 21 minutes.
Sevenoaks doubled their lead just before the hour when Brett Ince ran onto a through ball and wrong-footed goalkeeper Ryan Birch.
Andy Irvine punished some poor City defending to make it 3-0 moments later although the visitors did pull one back in the closing stages.
Rob Lawrence played a perfectly- weighted pass for Martin and he poked the ball past Rob French.
Sevenoaks, however, had the final word when Patrick Nzuzi turned the ball into his own goal.
They are ninth with two games left, four places and 10 points behind Whitstable.