Shameless

The new National South football season started on a lovely warm day, with a large, genial crowd, and decent opposition in Dulwich Hamlet for Tonbridge Angels to benchmark themselves against. As the teams walked out the first, and most obvious, difference was apparent in their physique. This was a National South side against an Isthmian side.

Last season, Torquay weren’t the first to realise how best to get out of this league, but they set the template in stone – ditch most of the skilled ballers and bring in a bunch of oversized lumps who can hoik it in roughly the right direction of the one or two with some touch. Then bully their way out. It worked for them, so of course everyone else with those aspirations and sufficient funds has followed suit. Dulwich’s team was mostly huge, and mostly disappointingly limited in skill given the wages they must be pulling in, but smart in conning the junior referees who cut their teeth at this level, and who often determine the result along with their deaf mute assistants.

Tonbridge were cautious for much of the first half. Even when gifted 10 v 11 after 13 minutes for a silly pull down by a Hamlet defender, they didn’t go two up front and drive home a potential early advantage, against a team still learning to play together. Safety first, one up front, stayed in place and was punished as the most shameless lump on the pitch, David Ijaha, was left unmarked to head home at a corner.

Tonbridge looked rather lost for the rest of the first half, while the signs of what was to come were apparent when a Hamlet scaffold pole threw himself to the ground in the Tonbridge penalty area. The ref rightly gave the free kick for simulation, but no yellow card. Dulwich twigged that it was open season to use their experience at this level to manipulate this wimp with the whistle, and so it began. With their size they looked threatening at every set piece, and the skilful Clunis probed and tested Jack Parter well. However, it remained 1-0 at half time.

The second half started evenly, but the game came alive following another piece of dubious refereeing. The Tonbridge keeper Henly had injured his shoulder early in the first half, but with no sub keeper on the bench he had to stay on. Indecision because of his injury on whether to catch or punch a cross resulted in a half hearted flap, and as he went for the rebound he brought down a Dulwich player. Clear penalty and, under the current laws of the game, a yellow card, because he was trying to play the ball, but the wimpy whistle wallah wilted and sent him off.

The upshot was defender Jay Folkes in goal, a penalty stroked home for a 2-0 Dulwich lead, and a barrel full of problems for Tonbridge. Except that rather helpfully Dulwich decided to stick, and sit back on their 2-0 advantage. Tonbridge sensed their opportunity, woke up, and the game came alive. I don’t know if the one up front formation was formally abandoned, or if the Angels players just took it in their hands and decided to go for it, but for half an hour they looked like last year’s team. Turner scored a penalty after a bout of all-in wrestling, and they hit the post twice, while Folkes never had his gloves dirtied by the Dulwich strikers. However, Hamlet held on, although Tonbridge more than matched them when they applied heavy pressure, and the game turned in to a noisily supported, rollicking good spectacle.

As the last bus prepared to pull out of town, time was finally called at 2-1 to Dulwich, not long after the boorish Ijaha had treated the home fans to an obscene gesture, which summed him up perfectly. What a role model for the self styled team of the people to have as their captain. However, the fact was that two goals was too much for Tonbridge to pull back over the 103 minutes played.

Yes, 103 minutes. Joking aside, because we all like a little dig at the oppos, don’t we, this is where my beef about the shameless Hamlet players feigning injury and the dismal refereeing comes in. None of the Dulwich fans at the game said it didn’t happen – they all just said it was what you do in this league. For fuck’s sake, 13 minutes of added time across the game, for a few subs and one injured goalie. Neither red card was greeted with much complaint. No Air Ambulance, no stretcher, no VAR reviews, not even so much as a magic sponge. It was just grown men rolling about like a bunch of complete tits, and the biggest tit of all letting them do it, as they ran back on the pitch like rhinos on speed. Yes, of course it happens to some extent in every game, but this was extreme.

The referee acknowledged some of the time wasted, and should have added more, but was way too much of a wet blanket to stop the behaviour. And this is why it happens – because the joker with the whistle allows it to. Happy to step in on the penalty decisions, the money shots for his assessor, but wet behind the ears when it comes to gamesmanship and the dark arts. Welcome to the National League South. Leave your sense of shame at the door.

Looking at the teams themselves, at one end Tonbridge finished on a high, which bodes well if they can keep it up across the whole 90 minutes. The spirit is there, but the manager needs to be bolder when an opportunity presents itself – there’s no room for faint hearts in this league. They also badly need a reliable goal scorer, which they do not have at present, and to bulk up their physical presence.

At the other end, Dulwich did what they felt they had to do, and did it well. They are very well supported, well funded, know what they want, and have a shameless disregard for how they go about it, or what everyone else thinks of them. This is no Sandinista – it is Boris Johnson embodied in a football team.

Good luck to them. They are not going to remain everyone’s favourite funky boho underdog on the next step of their journey. But having left their shame at the door, they clearly don’t give a toot – a club for our times. It’ll be interesting to see how far Tonbridge feel the need to follow.