Herne Bay crashed out of the FA Cup at the first stage, losing 3-1 to Folkestone Invicta at the Safety Net Stadium, Winch’s Field in this Preliminary Round fxture.

The Invicta side contained several former Bay players including Darren Marsden, Jack Delo, Liam Dickson, and Stuart King. King and Marsden played a major part in Herne Bay’s downfall, both scoring.

Bay started the tie well and for the first 15 minutes took the game to the visitors, and in fact could have gone ahead inside the first 5 minutes when Rhys Lawson combined well with Andy Irvine and George Landais. Unfortunately Landais shot on goal was embarrassing.

Another chase fell to Bay in 17th minute; Michael Turner put Irvine through but again he fluffed his shot in front of goal. From that moment on Folkestone upped their game and made Bay look second best.
On 18 minutes, only a last ditch tackle from James Campbell denied Josh Burchell a crack at goal and it was Burchell again 7 minutes later who went close, but on both occasions only to be thwarted by Dan Eason in the Herne Bay Goal. Folkestone continued to press forward and this paid dividends in 27th minute when the ball was put through for King who was in acres of space giving him time to wait for Eason to close him down before lobbing over his outstretched arms to give Invicta a well deserved lead.

Folkestone still continued to pressurize and they duly doubled their lead 10 minutes later when the referee ruled that Steve Hanson had pulled back James Everitt in the penalty area. Up stepped Marsden and he made no mistake in slamming the ball past Eason. With Bay’s defence in disarray King should have increased the lead in blazed his effort high and wide of the target. A very professional first half performance from Folkestone, which Bay failed to come to terms with. Even when they did offer any form of counter they lacked any real quality in front of goal.

The second half started in the same vein and with only 5 minutes on the clock Folkestone went further ahead following some clever play from King forcing Joe Nelder to deflect the ball past Dan Eason for an own goal. That goal seemed to spur Herne Bay into action. Five minutes later Irvine played a great ball to Lawson who in turn squared the ball to Tom Bryant but his shot was cleared of the line by Liam Friend.
On the hour mark Dean Grant replaced Turner with this was quickly followed with Nathan Eastwood coming on for Tom Parker.

Herne Bay were lucky not to go further behind when Burchell let fly from 40yards, only to see his shot rebound off of the cross bar. For the last 20 minutes Folkestone eased off and their play became ragged. Bay took advantage of this. From a Josh Sergeant corner to the far post found Landais who headed back from the bye line to Irvine to volley in from 10 yards. Folkestone then ‘shut up shop’ preventing Bay from any further threats on the Invicta goal. Folkestone go into the 1st Qualifying Round where they travel to Badshot Lea on 8th September.

Att: 314

Team: Eason, Nelder, Bryant, Campbell, Hanson, Parker, Turner(M), Sargeant, Landais, Irvine, Lawson, Subs used: Grant (Turner 61 min) Eastwood (Parker 66 min) Not used: Lloyd, Okundalaye, King