A weakened Ashton Prime headed back to Tonbridge Farm to face league-leaders Tonbridge Athletic without a host of regular starters. Goalkeeper Kerton, centre-back Turvey and midfielder Westcott were all injured in the weekend's game against Rusthall and were ruled out.

With work commitments ruling out a couple of others, Prime scraped together 12 players with Sykes pulling the keeper's jersey on and Ellis dropping back to central-defence alongside Cary.

Goldsmith started his first game in central midfield for several years and Carl Barker played in an unfamiliar wide-right position. Goulding was the sole sub.

With a 6:30 kick-off, most of Prime's players turned up minutes before kick-off and they would not have witnessed Athletic's rigorous warm-up routine - something that the Prime squad might have considered doing 10 years ago!

A game of 35 minutes each way was agreed to cater for the fading light. Prime kicked off and it was a fairly even opening with Barker getting involved and seeing plenty of the ball in the early stages.

But on 10 minutes, Prime lost possession from a throw-in deep in Athletic's half and the home side broke quickly and despite Sykes' best efforts, the Athletic midfielder was able to walk the ball into the net.

They doubled their lead 5 minutes later when Henshall's attempted interception turned out to be a defence-splitting through ball which their striker finished well.

It was soon 3 as their right-winger who was giving Sander a torrid time cut in from the right and curled a shot past Sykes who appeared to be lying on the floor as the ball went over him!

There was a danger of the scoreline getting out of control but the midfield trio of Goldsmith, Abu and Excell continued to work hard and Prime started to see more of the ball.

Abu's snap-shot was as close as they had come in the early stages but they threatened with a few long throws from Goldsmith and Excell corners without ever creating a clear-cut chance.

It was 3-0 at the break and realistically Prime knew they only had pride to play for and they picked up where they left off before the break with everyone working hard to blunt Tonbridge's cutting edge.

The home side seemed to have a conveyor belt of substitutes which kept joining the fray as the half progressed and Prime's ageing legs caught up with them. One of the subs was their striker who seemingly took offence to being called burly (that's how you spell it!) after the last match. The fat lad was presumably left out after being in Tom Cary's pocket last time out.

Tonbridge continued to dominate and Prime's attacking forays were few and far between meaning Ferguson and Barker saw little of the ball.

Prime did get the ball in the net when Abu ran on to Sander's through-ball and slid home past the keeper, but the linesman flagged him just offside.

Goldsmith spent most of the match shadowing the Tonbridge skipper who was roughly the same height. Goldsmith tripped him once before getting flattened himself flicking on a goal-kick. After that, he decided to send on 'chopper Goulding' whose first involvement was to put in a tackle that was so late the Tonbridge winger had already eaten his Easter eggs!

Tonbridge added 2 more in the final 10 minutes to complete a resounding scoreline and they will surely go on to win the league and cup double seeing as they are head and shoulders above all other teams in Div 2.

At the final whistle, Prime players returned to the changing room, had a laugh about how badly things had gone, then went off for a beer and a curry. The rumours are that the Tonbridge warm-down finally finished just as the onion bhajis were being served!