Rams 2 Fleet Town 2

Ramsgate welcomed Fleet Town to Southwood, in need of points from their higher-placed visitors, but despite end-to-end stuff in a disjointed first half (thanks to interruptions from the referee); there were no goals before the interval.

In the second half the visitors opened the scoring in the 51st minute, when a bouncing ball on the edge of the area was lashed in by Chad Coombes, giving ‘keeper Jack Smelt no chance on his debut. Three minutes later the scores were again level when Paul Axon rifled a volley which, like Lampard’s effort in South Africa, came off underside of the bar and bounced over the line before returning to the pitch. Fleet ‘keeper Chris Baker showed pace that any striker would be proud of as he did the 100-dash to remonstrate with the Referee’s Assistant, but the man in black stood firm. The Rams kept pressing, and Tom Tsangarides broke through to go one-on-one with Baker, but volleyed into his torso from a few yards. Fleet re-took the lead in the 72^nd minute when a cross from the right hand corner was headed back across the area and inside the post by Johnnie Dyer. Tsangarides broke through again in the 82^nd minute, chipping Baker but a quick-thinking defender got back just in time to divert it before it crossed the line. A few minutes later Warren Schulz was very close to equalising, but that came through an 89^th minute penalty from Mark Lovell, given for a handball while the Rams were peppering the goal. The shine went somewhat when Rams’ defender Ollie Gray was dismissed in stoppage time for a 2^nd caution, and although Tsangarides again went one-on-one to hit Baker, every point counts for the Rams at the moment.

Ramsgate: Jack Smelt, Mitchell Sherwood, James Gregory, Ollie Gray, Liam Quinn, Ben Laslett (c), Warren Schulz, Simon Pettit (Mark Lovell 79), Tom Tsangarides, Paul Axon. Substitutes: Ryan Harker, Luke Wheatley, Curtis Winnett, Brett Mills.

Att 123