Ashford suffered yet another kick in the teeth last night, when popular central defender Billy Jeffreys was injured just five minutes into the match.  The worst possible news came some time later from the hospital that Billy had suffered a badly broken tibia and looks to be out for the season.  Everyone at Ashford sends him their best wishes and hopes that he will be back in action as soon as possible.

To compound matters, his defensive colleague Guy Hollis had to leave the field in the second half with a re-occurrence of the ankle injury that kept him out for so long last season.

Despite the loss of their influential defender Ashford played supremely well in the opening twenty-five minutes and went ahead through Byron Harrison from the penalty spot.  Dartford though are a class act and equalised eight minutes from half-time when Lee Noble found himself in the clear on the left flank and a low effort to the far post eluded Craig Ross.

Nevertheless, Ashford more than deserved to turn round on level terms but the early part of the second half saw their visitors turning the screw and despite the best efforts of Craig Ross in goal, and full backs Hone Fowler and Vinnie O’Sullivan, now both playing in central defence, it became impossible to keep them out as Dartford went ahead and then sealed the match with two more goals to make it 4-1 by the 72^nd minute.

At 1-2 Byron Harrison had a marvellous opportunity to level the scoreline but as he cut in from the left his angle was a little tight and Andy Young in the Dartford goal was able to make a good save.  Heads never went down though and over the final twenty minutes Ashford came back into the match although by then, of course, the visitors knew they had won the game.