| A mere fortnight after entertaining Cove at Short Lane, Ashford found themselves making the return journey after the League allowed Westfield to postpone two fixtures and paired up the two teams left with blank dates. That was good news for the younger members of Mick Snowden's squad, many of whom retained their places in the starting line-up. 
As they had in the first meeting of the sides, Cove had the first sight of goal, but failed to hit the target. After that, it was the visitors who controlled the game without ever truly testing home stopper Laurie Moss, although Oscar Johnson did clip the post with a header in the 19th minute. Ashford also saw a corner hacked off the line and a Jimmy Stanford shot saved by Moss. However, with your correspondent's stopwatch reading 44:59, the breakthrough arrived. A well weighted pass from Stuart Luwawa found Lewis Wombwell, who confidently flicked the ball over Moss and watched it drop into the goal. The second half continued in much the same vein and Jimmy Stanford took the ball around Moss in the 49th minute but left himself too tight an angle and the shot went wide. However, he chalked up his eighth goal of the campaign in the 56th minute when he crashed a free-kick into the net from twenty-two yards. In the 63rd minute, it was 3-0 when some neat passing sprang the hosts' offside trap and left George Jennings clean through on goal and the livewire forward's finish was efficient. A succession of substitutions and the cold weather disrupted the rhythm of the match and there were no further goals, although Ashford felt they should have had an eighty-third minute penalty when Jennings was felled from behind, although referee Kehoe was unmoved. This was a professional performance which keeps Ashford right in the hunt at the top of the table, with Camberley and Chertsey looking like their main rivals for the divisional title. | 
Saturday, 04 February 2012
