The Hope Inn entered the Kent Cup this season with aspirations of a reasonable cup run and some good away fixtures. But even before they could dream of exciting away trips to the likes of Margate, Hastings or Chatham, they first had to overcome a local side from Deal in the preliminary round.
Ringwould FC come from the supposed less demanding Deal Sunday league, so the Hope went into this fixture as favourites. Although the Hope enjoyed long spells of possession in the first half, it was the visitors who carved the better early goal scoring chances. It wasn’t long before Ringwould took full advantage of a lack-lustre start by the home team and took the lead. The young and lively Ringwould forward latched on to a long ball over the Hope Inn defence and neatly slotted the ball past the Hope Inn’s retuning keeper Danny Skinner.
The Hope Inn continued playing like a side hungover, unable to muster the effort to over come their lesser opponents. However before half time the Hope Inn’s veteran yet ever eager forward Steve Smith, quickly closed down the Ringwould keeper after a stray back pass. His efforts paid off as Steve was able to come away with ball at his feet and pass it into an empty net.
At half time the Hope Inn made some changes to the tactics and personnel, on came the Manager himself and the rested John Muir. The team also reverted to the previously successful 4-3-3 formation. The Hope Inn began the second half rejuvenated, with the Manager showing the team the way forward as he calmly guiding the ball pass the oncoming Ringwould keeper, after the ball broke kindly to him on the edge of the 18 yard area.
The Hope Inn continued to put pressure on the Ringwould defence, and got their reward with a penalty. Having been put through from a fine pass off the outside of the cultured right boot of Jae Donnelly, Dave Fielding was brought down as carried on his run into the box. The Hope Inn’s penalty taker John Muir dispatched the ball into the back of the ‘onion bag’ with cool confidence. John later got a second and played the remaining 15 minutes of game with shouts of ‘hat-trick!’ from the crowd whenever he brought the ball forward. However it was the Hope Inn’s own ‘goal machine’ Steve Smith who grabbed the Hope’s 5th goal of the game, heading in from close range.
Ringwould got a late consolation goal but by this time the Hope Inn had already booked their place in the draw for the next round.
This report however would not be complete without special mention to the Hope Inn’s left back Gavin Oakley who had an outstanding game (better than Fergus Martin) and walked away with the Man of the Match award after the game.
