Town lose their way.  For seventy minutes Whitstable matched  a strong Dulwich side, two simple mistakes costing them the points, or at least a share of them.  With the game very even for the first forty-five minutes during which the game ebbed and flowed, the home side upped the tempo at the start of the second as Whitstable lost the edge they had in the first.  

While Whitstable Manager Mark Lane is on holiday, the duties fell to his assistant Clint Gooding and Coach Andy Morris, Gooding was particularly upset at the final whistle.

“Laney and I thought when we saw the fixture that we would have two tough games to start the season with. In all honesty we should have played better against Godalming,” said Gooding.  “If we’d played half as well as we did tonight in the Godalming game, we would have at least shared the points. That said; it was two mistakes tonight that cost us the game, at half time we were pleased to go in nil-nil, even though we knew we had to play better. The down side was that Kieran Morris was unable to continue after the poor tackle just before the interval; he had a good first forty-five minutes but that meant we had to shuffle the players around and it did upset our rhythm. “

Town started the better and took the game to the visitors, then despite some early raiding down the flanks Whitstable seemed to go into their shell after about fifteen minutes, the home side found their passing game and started to threaten. Up front Ian Pulman and Stuart Vahid, for the second match running had to survive on mere scraps; the quality balls that had become the norm the last three pre season games a distant memory. Town walked off at the interval knowing they had been in a game, the tackles from both teams were a bit on the tasty side, Morris the one player to suffer he did not take part in the second half.

Dulwich started much the brighter in the second half as they found their quick passing game, Whitstable had a few chances but in the main seemed happy just to clear their lines. Kevin Fewell in Town’s goal pulled of a couple of fine saves to deny the home side that seemed to have the run on Town down the flanks.  Whitstable too often fired the long ball straight to the 6ft 4inch centre back who missed maybe a couple of headers during the whole game.

Fewell, so often the saviour of his team-mates over the years kicked a clearance low and without enough power, the ball fell very kindly to the home side in the seventy-third minute, offering the easiest chance to put the home side one-nil up. The goal came just as Town were pushing on and had a five minute spell when they rattled the home side, the goal changed everything suddenly after making three substitutes Dulwich looked to add to their tally at every attack.  Ten minutes later with Whitstable pushing up to gain the equaliser; they were caught on the break, young Gareth Cornhill miss-timing a tackle allowing the nippy winner to run unopposed at Fewell’s goal. His powerful shot left Town’s keeper with no chance and Whitstable without a point after two league games.  

If Town get back to playing the ball out of defence on the floor and feed the front players with some quality balls we will be looking at a much better season than last; but much more of the long ball ‘just hoof it clear’ and Whitstable will have another long anxious season on their hands.

Tony Rouse (c) WTFC

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