Whitstable Town 2 Merstham 1

On paper you’d think that Whitstable would be a bit shell shocked on the back of losing 5-0 to classy Croydon in the week, manager Mark Munday looking at Croydon as the one that all the other teams need to beat to win the title. “I told the lads to learn from the game, but not get too down as we will not be up against a ‘Croydon’ every week, and today we were very solid at the back and scored two good goals.”

The first chance of the game fell to the visitors in the thirteenth minute when Julian Owuse-Bekoe brought out a great save from Whitstable keeper Kevin Fewell after he touched the tall strikers low drive against the post, clutching the ball to his chest from the rebound. The game was very competitive with both side showing a gritty determination when going for the ball both giving no quarter in some strong challenges.

Town wasted a number of free kicks in good position before Dan Wisker scored in the forty-first minute with a flicked header from a Gareth Cornhill whipped in low driven cross. Neither side had another real chance of note; Town went into the half time interval one–nil ahead.

Owuse-Bekoe was substituted in the fifty-first minute, five minutes later Whitstable scored their second, Jake Gess profiting from great work by Stuart Vahid down the right flank, his perfectly weighted pass was coolly slotted past visiting keeper Ian Chatfield.

Merstham never gave up running but a long-range shot that clipped the top of the bar with Fewell stranded was as close as they came until scorer of Whitstable’s first goal Dan Wisker was shown a red card with about fifteen minutes remaining after a tussle with the visiting captain.

It mattered not that he was set upon first as the ref only saw the retaliation and Wisker was sent on his way. Town could have extended their lead Chatfield making a good save then beating away the follow-up from Gess as the young midfielder went chasing his second.  Down to ten men Town knew that the visitors would come at them and in the eighty-eighth minute Tristan Frontin out jumped Town’s defence to give the visitors some hope, but Town had no more scares to gain another three valuable points.