9/4/2008

Sport

Football - Defeat seals Molesey's relegation

Molesey                            1      
Whitstable Town             3

MOLESEY’S fate was sealed on Saturday when defeat at home to Whitstable Town ensured the Walton Road side will be playing their football next season outside the Ryman League.

Before kick off Molesey retained the slimmest of chances of avoiding the drop.

Trailing third-from-bottom Chatham Town by 17 points with a maximum of 18 points available from their final six matches, Molesey needed to win all of their remaining fixtures while hoping the Chatham did the opposite.

In the event, Molesey’s chance of avoiding the drop was taken out of their hands by Chatham who beat Kingston-ian 3-1 to not only damage the Kingston side’s play-off hopes but also extinguish the Moles’ last remaining hope of staying up.

Molesey cannot complain about the other result going against them as they were unable to get anything from their match with Whitstable Town, losing 3-1 at Walton Road in a dire encounter made worse by the condition of the pitch.

Both sides struggled to adjust to the boggy conditions in the first half, with neither goalkeeper troubled.

The visitors broke the deadlock midway through the second half when Tommy Martin played in Dave Corey who slotted the ball past Matt Nash in the Molesey goal.

Whitstable added a second from the penalty spot five mintues later and Marcos Perona tapped in a rebound soon after to make the score 3-0.
Leyton Phelan scored a consolation for Molesey in injury time.

First printed in: News & Mail Series