NEW SIGNING NANA SHINES FOR TANNERS ON HIS BOW
LEATHERHEAD’S new signing Nana Boakye-Yiadom showed what he can do, while goalkeeper Emmanuel Agboola stayed strong to earn the home side a point against title hopefuls Billericay.
The visitors started brightly and after Billy Bricknell had the first shot of the match in the first minute for Billericay, the home side found themselves behind on six minutes.
With the Leatherhead defence wide open Billericay top scorer Jake Robinson placed a calm finish past Agboola.
Leatherhead had a corner on 14 minutes, where a couple of chances were missed, including a Lee Minshull header.
They almost levelled on 17 minutes when Jerry Nnamani had a shot cleared off the line.
Sam Deering then took a corner for Billericay from which Ricky Modeste put his shot well over the bar.
On 20 minutes, Boakye Yiadom, who had just signed on load from Dulwich Hamlet the day before, had a shot which just went wide of the post.
However, Leatherhead were level when Aron Pollock popped up with a goal on 30 minutes, heading superbly home from a Sammy Moore corner to the delight of the home fans.
The game opened up and Modeste shot wide on 31 minutes for the visitors before Tom Derry headed a Moore free-kick just wide moments later.
On 36 minutes, Boakye Yiadom had a chance but Billericay goalkeeper Alan Julian did well to get down low and save.
After this, the Leatherhead goalscorer was forced off with a thigh strain and was replaced by D’Sean Thoabalds on 40 minutes.
Robinson then went close to a second when he had a deflected shot go out for a corner on 42 minutes, but the away side couldn’t capitalise.
After the break Agboola made a good save on 56 minutes to keep Modeste’s stinging shot out.
Agboola then did well again on 67 minutes to keep out a Robinson header.
Substitute Jamie O’Hara, who had come on just moments before to replace Calum Butcher, had a 71st minute free-kick saved well by Agboola in the Leatherhead goal.
Boakye-Yiadom was putting in a man-of-the-match performance and could only be stopped on 78 minutes by a blatant foul by Robert Evans, which saw the latter pick up a yellow card.
O’Hara struck firmly on 79 minutes but it hit his own man Modeste to take it away from the danger area.
Agboola was having a decent match between the sticks for Leatherhead and saved yet another shot on 84 minutes, this time from an O’Hara free kick as the points were shared.