Ryman Premier
East Thurrock 1 v 1 Bognor Regis Town
EAST Thurrock’s hopes of a Ryman Premier play-off place hang by a thread after Tuesday’s draw with Bognor but while the fact they only gained a point from a game they dominated will be a disappointment, the quality of their overall performance wasn’t.
In the end the difference between the two sides, who share a nickname but came into the encounter with vastly differing momentum, was an individual error and an off night for non-league football’s top scorer Sam Higgins.
He missed four gilt-edged opportunities, including a second successive penalty miss, while central defender Paul Goodacre’s first half blunder gave Bognor the opportunity to grab a foothold early in the game.
East Thurrock – with just one win in five games – started the game against a side on a winning run, at a high tempo and inside two minutes worked a great opportunity for Higgins, who might well have been offside when he received the ball but made the assistant referee’s judgement irrelevant by blazing his angled shot wide of the target.
The home side were looking the livelier in a match that was played from the off at a high tempo but on 13 minutes they conceded the game’s opening goal when a punt upfield by Bognor looked to be covered by Goodacre. He had a number of options open to him as the ball held up in the swirling wind but opted for the most difficult and tried to control the bounce on the deck. However, he lost possession to Jason Prior who was able to break through on goal with only keeper David Hughes to beat. Hughes did well to keep his shot out but the ball broke into the path of Ollie Pearce who gratefully steered the ball into an unguarded net.
East Thurrock continued to enjoy the lion’s share of possession as the tempo of the match remained high and on the half hour Ellis Brown was denied only by a close range reaction save from keeper Chris Winterton and when the ball broke into the path of Higgins it looked odds on a goal but the striker blazed the ball high over the bar.
Bognor responded with a flowing move of their own that saw Pearce show equal profligacy by shooting over.
The home side were quickly back on the offensive and Ryan Sammons drilled a shot across the face of goal before, in the last minute of the half, another flowing move by East Thurrock ended with Higgins upended in the box. With 25 league goals already banked this season, few would have bet on Higgins wasting the opportunity from 12 yards but Higgins saw his thunderous shot come back off the post – his third penalty miss of the season and his second in succession.
It is not in the nature of top strikers to worry about such things and Higgins remained the focal point of East Thurrock’s attack in a second half they dominated.
On 59 minutes he turned and worked space in the box but shot just wide and moments later he sprang the visiting defence and chipped the ball past Winterton but saw it bounce wide of the upright.
It was no surprise that Higgins played a key role in the equaliser in the 72 minute, scrambling to win an opportunity to shoot. Winterton saved his first effort but the second was handballed off the line by Bognor defender Harvey Whyte but before referee Adrian Sannerude could interject Mitchell Gilbey pounced to prod the ball into the net. Bognor protested, seemingly preferring to go down to ten men and face a spot kick, but common sense prevailed and the goal stood.
The closing stages saw a number of half chances for Rocks to get a winner, but the nearest either side was to come to a second goal was a header from Bognor’s Craig Robson that came back off the crossbar and in the end honours were shared.
