WHEN a team comes to your ground with the sole intention of spoiling the match, you have to be at your best to secure a result.
Unfortunately, Leatherhead were not, nowhere near it and consequently they were undone by the ten men of Sittingbourne, who you would have thought had won the FA Cup by their celebrations at the end.
There is obviously back story in this fixture, with Richard Brady having ditched Bourne Park for Fetcham Grove and the exuberant fans behind the goal asked: "Brady, Brady what's the score?" as he trudged off after the final whistle.
The antics of the Brickies players left a lot to be desired. They were rightly reduced to ten men ten minutes before the interval when Nick Treadwell, who had already been booked for barging Jerry Nnamani into a post and then getting a talking to for a further foul, was given a straight red card for leading with his elbow in an aerial challenge with Matt Smart.
The visitors' intentions were pretty clear before that, but thereafter they milked every foul, got in the referee's face and tried to get Leatherhead players booked wherever possible to even things up. It was not pretty.
And the Tanners, who had been on a run of five straight league victories, could not handle it.
Having said that the home side had the majority of the play in the first half, but did not do much with it. Tommy Hutchings saw a dipping volley fly just over, before beating the keeper with a first-time shot but also the far post.
Kev Terry also rose highest at the back post to meet a Dan Palfrey cross after Liam Wright had done well to hold up the ball, but he planted his header wide.
They continued in the same sort of vein in the second half as Nnamani tried his luck from distance to be denied by Adam Molloy and the Brickies keeper then fumbled a long-ranger from substitute Neil Jenkins, only to gather at the second attempt.
It was a niggly affair with the referee failing to get a grip on what was going on and when he awarded the visitors a dubious free-kick to the right of the area after Chris Boulter had eased his man off the ball, you kind of knew what was coming.
Still, quite what captain Mark Simmons was trying to achieve when he flicked substitute Russell Bedford's set-piece on and in to the far corner of his own net is anyone's guess.
Sittingbourne celebrated the goal like there was no tomorrow and after Sam Blackman had a header deflected away from goal and then got in the way of Tom Bradbrook's late goalbound effort, the Brickies could celebrate a little bit more vigorously once the final whistle brought a terrible game to an end.
Leatherhead: Wells, Coyle, Palfrey (Thompson 74), Nnamani, Boulter, Simmons, Terry (Blackman 58), Smart, Bradbrook, Hutchings, Wright (Jenkins 56). Unused subs: Yembra, Greener-Simon.
