Dockers signal their inTENt

 Newhaven 10 Canterbury City 0, FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round replay

Having failed to take a number of clear-cut chances to see off Canterbury City on Saturday, the Dockers headed to Lancing yesterday evening for the ‘home’ replay.

Yes, that’s right, this was a home match. Albeit one held around 20 miles away from Newhaven. 

I’m not going to go into details behind the reason for this (not yet anyway, I’ll save that for another time), suffice to say thank you to Lancing for agreeing to host; and at least it gave the lads another run out on a 3G surface ahead of the first match at the revamped Fort Road in 12 days’ time.

Despite the fact the game was held further away from Newhaven than had originally been expected, a healthy number of undeterred and loyal Fort Road regulars made the trip west.

They were rewarded with 90 minutes that will live long in the memory.

Ninety minutes that, unless you were there, are almost impossible to do justice with using mere words (not a great admission from someone whose made their living through writing for the past 20 years, but there you have it!).

An hour-and-a-half that have also left me rethinking my confident pre-match boast that 'I don’t need to write anything down as I’ve got a really good memory and can remember pretty much everything that happens!’ 

Yep, good luck with that one!

After a fairly non-descript opening five minutes (there weren’t too many of these during the match!), the Dockers took the lead with their first meaningful attack. Max Vardy got in down the left, and squared the ball for Alfie Rogers to open the scoring.

It was two ten minutes later. This time, Newhaven worked the ball down the right and Harry Reed provided Lukas Franzen-Jones with the opportunity to maintain his record of scoring in every game so far this season. He duly obliged.

It took roughly 20 minutes for the third to arrive. Although, in truth, the score-line could have been added to numerous times in this period as a plethora of chances to add to the tally came and went.

The Canterbury defence just couldn’t cope with Newhaven’s constant attacking. Wave after wave of Newhaven attacks left the visitor’s back four – or was it a three, or a five? (it was hard to tell what formation they were trying to play) – all at sea.

The ‘hosts’, who had been playing with pretty much a front four since kick-off, suddenly looked like they had six forwards on the pitch, with full-backs Reed and Vardy channelling their inner Alexander-Arnold and Robertson vibes by playing more like wingers than defenders.    

It was Tom Underwood who did eventually net the third; his shot deflecting off a defender and looping over the helpless keeper into the top corner.

Five minutes later, any lingering doubts that this was going to be Newhaven’s night (not that there were any by this point, surely) were firmly put to bed. A flowing move from back to front was coolly finished off by Vardy, who had another impressive night at left-back. It was a brilliant team goal. The best of the first-half.

Two minutes later, it was five. Canterbury’s players were visibly deflated by this point (a fifth goal had already been ruled-out by a contentious off-side decision) and it was hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for them as the relentless Dockers continued to rip them to shreds. 

Lee Robinson was the beneficiary of lax defending this time, scoring from just inside the six-yard box; a huge confidence booster for the legendary Newhaven striker who had struggled in front of goal up to this point.

With half-time approaching, Franzen-Jones got his second of the game. With the Canterbury defenders appealing more in hope than expectation for an off-side, Vardy once again fed the in-form striker who never looked like he was going to miss.

So 6-0 at half-time. It was hard for the sizable contingent of Newhaven fans to get their heads around quite what they had seen as they mingled by the bar. One can only hazard a guess at what any Canterbury followers were making of what they were watching.

Seven minutes after the restart, though, there threatened to be a slight plot twist (slight being the operative word here).

Having only recently replaced Reed, new signing Don Street was shown a straight red card for a high tackle in the centre circle. With the Dockers suddenly down to ten men, could the visitors score a couple of consolation goals and bring an air of respectability to the scoreline?

No, was the very definitive answer.

Within three minutes of Street’s dismissal, Rogers was afforded plenty of time and space inside the area to grab his second of the evening and Newhaven’s seventh.

There was now becoming something of an unreal, almost dream-like quality to the evening. 

It was getting to the point where us Docker's fans would almost have been disappointed if we didn’t score ten. Which is quite frankly a ludicrous thing to sit here and type, but very much reflected the confidence that was flowing around the stadium (at least from a Newhaven perspective).

On the hour mark, Robinson became the third Newhaven player to reach two goals for the evening, brilliantly dispatching a curling effort from just outside the area. Memories of earlier misses were now very much dissipating.

It was impossible to tell the Dockers were a man light. Nothing about the game had changed. Newhaven still had time and space to move the ball at will and still looked like they would create an opportunity every single time they swarmed forward.

Canterbury’s players were already longing for the final whistle. For the torture they were enduring to finally be over. It was hard to blame them.

The ninth – and a strong contender for goal of the night along with Vardy’s and Robinson’s second – came from Marcin Ruda. The imperious Polish central midfielder pirouetted through a couple of half-hearted challenges before unleashing a brilliant effort which once again left the Canterbury goalkeeper with no chance.

Of all the Canterbury players, it was their goalkeeper I felt most sorry for. He literally could do nothing about any of the goals and was left totally exposed by his defence time and time again.

Perhaps sensing that we’d decided to give man-of-the-match to the first person to reach their hat-trick (we were that confident that someone would), Franzen-Jones hit the bar from an audacious corner, curling the ball with the outside of his boot.

It was Robinson, though, who would ultimately claim that prize, racing clear with five minutes left and once again sending the ball past the bewildered opposition keeper.

Ten goals reached. Scoring over.

Canterbury did have a chance to get one back, right at the end, only for Jake Buss to make a good save to preserve a clean sheet. It’s safe to say the Docker’s keeper and captain will have busier days this season.

So the Dockers cruise into the hat for the Extra Preliminary Round, where they will play away to either Sheppey United or Athletic Newham (who drew their first match 3-3).

To steal a reply to one of my Tweets last night, it’s only another 990 minutes to Wembley…

My MOM (aka, the controversial part): Lee Robinson. Almost impossible to single one player out when the whole team was brilliant, but Robbo did what all good strikers do by brushing off misses, continuing to get himself in good areas and ultimately netting a well-deserved hat-trick.

Last night, my son chose to interview Lukas-Franzen Jones after the game. He’s been wanting to interview him all season just so he could ask him the second question. 

For context, Lukas supports Everton. My son supports West Ham, so not sure why he’s been so desperate to ask this question, but then again not an awful lot makes sense with him. 

We also got our first heckle during this series; thanks Toby.