Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Edgar makes dream start
Isthmian South East
Herne Bay continued their pursuit of the play-offs by taking four points from two games this week, writes Ollie Collins.
Ben Smith’s side followed up Saturday’s 2-0 home win against Chichester City with an excellent goalless draw away to leaders Hastings on Tuesday. A debut goal from Anthony Edgar and a second-half strike from right-back Ryan Cooper proved enough to claim the three points for Bay against Chichester.
Edgar put Bay into the lead after 17 minutes when some good play between himself and Zak Ansah found the debutant with space to shoot from the right hand side of the box. Bay continued to dominate the game and scored their second in the 67th minute. Tushaun Walters took on the defender and found Cooper on the overlap who slotted a low effort into the bottom corner. Herne Bay manager Ben Smith said: “I thought Anthony Edgar was excellent on debut, you could see that he oozes quality and made his finish look easy.” New boy Edgar was a late withdrawal from the side for the game at Hastings after picking up an injury in the warm-up. Dan Lawrence was his replacement.
Both sides produced good passages of play which meant keepers, George Kamurasi of Bay, and the home side’s Louis Rogers needed to be alert to maintain the stalemate. Kamurasi distinguished himself in the first half by producing two saves in quick succession from Jack Dixon and Ben Pope who later brought another good save from the Bay man
Zak Ansah had a shot plucked out by Rogers before being superbly denied by the home keeper after getting on the end of a cross from Walters. Rogers also saved at the feet of subsutitute Chris Saunders who looked to pounce after Kyron Lightfoot’s shot had been parried in time added on. Bay are the first team to take points off Hastings at home, with the result moving them into the top five. Whitstable Town made it back to back 3-1 wins, at Three Bridges Town, to move up to ninth in the table.
An unstoppable strike from John Ufuah opened the scoring for the Oystermen after eight minutes before Aaron Millbank grabbed a three-minute brace around the hour mark. A brilliant Millbank free kick doubled Whitstable’s lead in the 59th minute before he broke through the defence to find his second in the 62nd minute. Curtis Gayler pulled a consolation goal back for Three Bridges but the Oystermen took the three points in a well deserved win. Whitstable’s next game is at home to 18th-placed Burgess Hill on Saturday.
There was heartbreak for Faversham Town in a 2-2 draw away at promotion hopefuls Whitehawk.
The Lilywhites were 2-0 up going into stoppage time, thanks to first-half goals from Stefan Wright and Josh Dorling. However, Whitehawk fought back with a 93rd minute effort from Duane Ofori-acheampong and then an equaliser two minutes later courtesy of Charles Banya. Faversham remain 17th in the league and face eighth-placed Sevenoaks Town at home on Saturday.