Tonbridge Angels 3, Canvey Island 1 (From Echo)

Tonbridge Angels 3, Canvey Island 1

2:00pm Monday 15th March 2010 in

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RESURGENT Tonbridge continued their climb away from the danger area with this home success, but it was a bad start to a particularly hectic period for Canvey.

Not only did they lose the first of four key league games in eight days, they also had leading marksman James Rowe sent off late on after picking up his second caution of the game following a foul on home keeper Lee Worgan.

The Islanders were in the ascendancy early on with skipper Richard Halle testing Worgan with a fierce seventh-minute drive.

But a 20-minute delay when assistant referee Tony King suffered a calf injury seemed to unsettle Gulls. Soon after the resumption Kirk Watts put Angels ahead with a 26th-minute goal following a mistake by Canvey’s usually reliable keeper James Russell.

And Angels must have realised the gods were smiling on them four minutes later when another Russell error allowed Paul Booth to make it 2-0.

Canvey, to their credit, refused to lay down and die and Rowe blasted home wide of Worgan to reduce the arrears seven minutes before the break.

And the strike star also tested Worgan after 54 and 56 minutes with efforts that produced superb saves.

Halle was also thwarted by the man-of-the-match home keeper before Rowe got his marching orders.

And Tonbridge rubbed salt in Canvey’s wounds in injury-time when substitute Jerhal Hughes made it 3-1.

Although by no means out of the play-off hunt — they are five points behind fifth-placed Boreham Wood with a game in hand — Gulls face a particularly tricky week.

They go to Hendon tomorrow and AFC Hornchurch on Thursday before returning to the Brockwell Stadium next weekend for a home clash with Tooting and Mitcham.