Rams 5 Walton Casuals 1

Today Ramsgate welcomed Walton Casuals to Southwood, with the Stags in 8^th place having had a much better run under new manager Neil Shipperley than his predecessors from the last few seasons, and Ramsgate in 17^th with only 2 wins under their belts.

Mark Lovell opened the scoring for the Rams when Tom Tsangarides was sandwiched between Liam Hind and ‘keeper Mark Philpot in the 12^th minute, the centre forward making no mistake from the spot. The 2^nd came 6 minutes later when Tsangarides latched onto a Warren Schulz through ball, and then got his second in the 24^th minute from a close range when he bundled the ball over the line.

With five minutes left of the half the Stags went down to 10 men, when Liam Hind was dismissed for a challenge on a Ramsgate defender as a free kick was floated in. Then, in stoppage time, the visitors got one back through Luke Evans when he got on the end of a freekick. But that wasn’t the end of the 1^st half action, as the Rams got their 2^nd penalty shortly after when Mitchell Sherwood was brought down, again duly converted by Lovell, for a half-time score of 4-1.

Within a minute of the restart, the Rams nearly extended their lead, but Philpot’s save at full stretch denied James Gregory’s effort from a Simon Pettit long throw flicked on by Schulz.

Lovell thought he had had completed his hat-trick in the 75^th minute, when he headed in Schulz’s free kick, however the assistant thought he had passed the defender before the kick was taken. And then a double substitution with 10 minutes to go saw Lovell and Tsangarides replaced by Paul Axon and Sammy Cliff. And 3 minutes later, a break up the right flank by Axon saw him cross a beautiful ball into the path of Cliff, who in turned placed it for Sherwood to slot in the Ram’s 5^th.

Then in the 90^th minute Axon and Cliff both thought they had beaten the offside trap, with the latter blasting past the advancing ‘keeper and into the top corner, but again the assistant’s flag went up.

Ramsgate: Brett Mills, Ollie Gray, James Gregory (Ryan Harker 76), Luke Wheatley, Liam Quinn, Ben Laslett (c), Mitchell Sherwood, Warren Schulz, Mark Lovell (Paul Axon 80), Tom Tsangarides (Sammy Cliff 80, Simon Pettit. Unused Substitutes: Joe Taylor, Curtis Winnett.

Attendance 140