Gulls pick off the K’s
I strongly believe in the Chaos Theory of Ryman Premier League football. A butterfly (or, perhaps, seagull) flaps its wings... and a defender falls over leading to an undeserved defeat.
Goals are not usually a product of strict intention but rather appear out of nowhere from chance and luck. Over the course of a season, the best teams generally get promoted but along the way, anything can happen.
So it went on Saturday when K's played pretty well for an hour, 1-0 up through Andre McCollin's fine finish, before a random occurrence intervened that no spectator could explain. A high ball in the air, a bounce, a collision between Tom Bird and Kieran Murphy, and Canvey's Kevin Dobinson was through. He squared to a grateful James Rowe to score and make it 1-1.
10 minutes later, and with the home team seemingly pondering the futility of all willed human endeavour, it was 2-1, when Bradley Woods-Garness finished from 6 yards out to give the Essex Gulls all three points.
This was a game Kingstonian dominated and never looked like drawing, let alone losing. Paul Vines was guilty of missing a sitter and was later denied by Ashlee Jones while McCollin had a thundering strike saved on to the bar. As the game wore on, we wondered if these missed opportunities would prove fatal.
The moral is: don't panic. We're playing well and the playoff place is there to be had. The only way to minimise the role of chance between now and April is to, er, take our chances.
Report: Taimour Lay
