Rovers 2-1 Ashford: Okoye’s late header keeps the title race alive
Ten-man Ashford held on until the ninety-third minute. Then a nineteen-year-old got to the byline.
For ninety-two minutes it looked like the afternoon Ashford United had come for. Then Jonah Price found space on the right, the cross came in low and hard, and Femi Okoye threw himself at it. Riverside Park, which had been quiet for half an hour, made a noise you could hear on the other side of the river.
Rovers 2, Ashford 1. The gap at the top is two points, and the title race that everyone said was over in August is very much alive.
How it happened
- 1' Kick-off in front of a full Riverside Park
- 14' Yellow card for Dean Hollis (Ashford) after a late tackle on Okoye
- 27' Goal! Marcus Webb curls a shot in from the edge of the box (1-0)
- 45+2' Half-time whistle
- 58' Goal! Tom Sherratt heads in Ashford's third corner of the half (1-1)
- 66' Substitution: Jonah Price on for Webb
- 81' Red card for Leon Carver (Ashford), a second yellow for pulling back Price
- 90+3' Goal! Femi Okoye dives to meet Price's low cross (2-1)
- 90+6' Full-time whistle
The first half
Rovers started the way they have started every home game this season: fast, high and loud. Ashford's back four had the ball for eleven seconds in the first two minutes and lost it three times. Okoye, who has scored in six of nine league games, had a shot blocked and a header saved before most of the crowd had found their seats.
Ashford settled. Their manager, Gareth Pym, has built a side that is hard to hurt when it keeps its shape, and after a quarter of an hour Rovers were passing sideways around a block of eight. Then Hollis, who had already been booked for a tackle on Okoye, stepped out of that block to close down Marcus Webb, and did not get close enough.
Webb's shot started outside the far post and finished inside it. It was the kind of goal a left-footer practises on a Friday afternoon, and he ran to the corner flag with his arms out as if he had known all along.
We said at half-time that we would get one chance to hurt them. Marcus took his. Then we gave them three corners and switched off for one of them.
Hannah Ogden, Riverside Rovers manager
Ashford come back
The second half belonged to the visitors for twenty minutes. Pym moved his wingers inside, pushed his full-backs on and suddenly Rovers were defending their own box. They cleared one corner, then a second. From the third, Tom Sherratt ran across the front of Kyle Bamber and headed in at the near post.
For a while it looked as though Ashford would win. Rovers could not get the ball out of their own half. Ogden's answer, on sixty-six minutes, was to take off the goalscorer. Webb looked at the board as if he had misread it. Jonah Price, nineteen years old and playing his fourth senior game, ran on in his place.
Ten men, and one more chance
The game turned on eighty-one minutes, and it turned because of Price. He took the ball past Leon Carver on the halfway line, and Carver, already booked, took a handful of his shirt. The referee did not hesitate. Ashford were down to ten, and they chose to defend what they had.
It nearly worked. Rovers had fourteen shots in the last quarter of an hour and eleven of them were blocked, saved or wide. In the third minute of added time, with the fourth official's board long gone, Price got to the byline again, looked up, and hit the cross first time. Okoye was not the nearest attacker. He was the one who wanted it most.
The top of the table
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverside Rovers | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | +12 | 22 |
| 2 | Ashford United | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | +9 | 20 |
| 3 | Elmwood | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | +7 | 17 |
| 4 | Northgate Albion | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | +4 | 15 |
What it means
Ashford will feel robbed and they are not entirely wrong. For an hour they were the better side. But title races are not decided by the better hour. They are decided by whose nineteen-year-old gets to the byline in the ninety-third minute, and by who is standing at the far post when he does.
The two sides meet again at Ashford in February. On this evidence, bring earplugs.
The view from the dressing room
Ogden did not pretend it had been a good performance. She said her side had been "second best for an hour" and that the substitution of Webb was "the hardest decision I've made this season, and the easiest to explain afterwards". Webb, to his credit, was the first player off the bench when Okoye scored, and he was still on the pitch, arm round Price, when the stadium announcer read out the attendance.
Pym was more angry than disappointed. He did not complain about the red card, which was clear. He complained about the three minutes of added time becoming six. "Somebody found three minutes in his pocket," he said. The fourth official's board had shown three. The referee played on because of two substitutions and a stoppage for an injury to Ashford's keeper, and the rules allow him to do exactly that.
Price's afternoon
It is worth saying again how young Jonah Price is. He left school in the summer. He travels to training on the same bus as the supporters. On Saturday, in front of nine thousand people, he beat his full-back four times in twenty-seven minutes and did not look nervous once. Ogden was asked if he will start next week. "Ask me on Friday," she said, and smiled.
