Fisher 0-5 Tunbridge Wells - We weren't at the races tonight, fumes Fisher boss Gary Lisney

Despite welcoming central defender Cedric Abraham back from his stint in the Ryman Premier League with Maidstone United, it was a night to forget for Fisher, who slumped to their worst home defeat of the season, as Tunbridge Wells climbed up to eighth place in the Kent League table with excellent finishing in front of goal.

The Wells scored from five of their six shots on target and they opened the scoring inside the opening five minutes, courtesy of Steve Ashmore’s third goal of the season, before rock solid central defender Perry Spackman volleyed home his first goal of the season in an devastating eight minute spell where Tunbridge Wells scored three goals, the others coming from strikers Keelan Mooney and Carl Cornell, who went on to score his 22nd goal of the season with an injury time lob.

Lisney was clearly a crestfallen figure afterwards, saying, “I thought we got what we deserved tonight to be fair.  It was like men against boys frankly.  Very, very disappointing.  An absolutely unacceptable performance from my team tonight.

“I talk to you regularly after games and I regularly defend my players when they give me the commitment and the work-rate and desire we’ve seen over the last five to six weeks, but I didn’t see any of that tonight to be frank.

“I can’t explain it. We’ve had five decent performances over the last six weeks.  We’ve been getting a little bit better and a little bit stronger.  Last Monday night we had a decent game (a 2-0 defeat) against Hythe,  who are top of the league.  My full expectation was we would turn up and push on from there.  We went through the same organisation, the same match routine that we go through and for whatever reason it was all a little bit flat tonight.”

Tunbridge Wells boss, Martin Larkin, meanwhile, was delighted that his side stretched their unbeaten run to six games and completed the double over the Fish, having thrashed them 7-1 at Culverden Stadium in January.

He said: “We are because they’ve got some really good players.  You only have to look through their team list and their squad and they’ve got players that have played in and around the Conference south and the Ryman Premier so we’re very happy with the result.

When asked about scoring five goals from six attempts on target, the Hove based manager replied, “That’s how good we are, they finish very well.  Shooting practice in training always goes well.  We always score lots of goals and we barely miss the target.  When you get a chance, you put it away and that’s exactly what we did.”

As soon as the visiting Kent Senior Trophy Finalists opened the scoring inside the opening five minutes, there was only going to be one winner, especially as Fisher have only scored 24 goals in 22 league games before tonight.

The ball was played over to Jon Pilbeam down the right and he sliced through full-back Mark Lewis and centred superbly for the unmarked Ashmore at the far post who fired home past returning goalkeeper Adam Lisney, who had a nightmare.

Larkin said: “He’s just a brilliant lad to have around.  He’s just a very solid Kent League player, who puts everything in for us.  He’s got two good feet on him.  You ask him to do a job anywhere and he’ll do it.  He’s a really good lad and he pops up and scores goals at important times.

“We wanted a quick start.  We wanted to bring back the memory - we only played them a few weeks ago when we scored seven against them - so we said if we can get a quick start, get an early goal, and they’ll remember what happened last time.”

Fisher conceded within eight minutes against Hythe Town last week and Lisney was not pleased with another bad start tonight.

“That’s a little bit of a bad habit as well,” he admitted.  “We conceded early against Hythe and then we managed to make a game of it.  We conceded after five minutes tonight and to be fair to Tunbridge Wells, they could’ve been more up at half-time frankly.  We were just not at the races at all tonight and it’s not acceptable.”

The game started at a high-tempo but the next goalscoring chance didn’t arrive until the 26th minute - Fisher’s best chance of the game.

Dexter Babalola - who is a subject of an official seven-day approach from Bromley based side Holmesdale - released his strike partner Dwayne Cowan, who cut inside Andy Boyle before cutting the ball back to Simon St Aimie, who unleashed a right-footed pile-driver from 30-yards, which was tipped over by Slovakian keeper Michal Czanner.  Either side of the giant keeper than it would have been 1-1.

Babalola then rolled a weak right-footed effort into Czanner’s gloves from just outside of the corner of the Tunbridge Wells penalty area.

Ashmore then dragged an angled left-footed drive wide of Fisher’s far post after Mooney twisted and turned Marc Hughes, before Tunbridge Wells stepped up a gear and won the game in an eight minute spell.

The Wells’ second goal, was almost similar to Brendon Cass’s opener for Hythe Town at this ground seven days earlier, as Andy McMath whipped in the free-kick from a similar spot that Kieran Byrne did then.

McMath swung in an excellent right-footed free-kick towards the far post - the delivery taking keeper Lisney out of the game - and this was met by a low right-footed volley by Spackman, who converted from close range.

His manager added: “We’ve been asking for goals from Perry.  (Central defender) Lee Shearer scored a lot of goals for Faversham last year and we’ve been trying to get Perry to get on the end of things because he is so dominant in the air.  It was a good finish with his right foot.  The delivery was superb from Macca and then Keelan has tucked one in which is nice.  Those one yarders have fallen for Hooley (Cornell) all season so it was nice for Keelan to have an easy one to tap in and again from fantastic work from Pilbeam on the right hand side.”

Tunbridge Wells raced into a 3-0 lead, just 162 seconds later, through Mooney’s thirteenth goal of the campaign.

Pilbeam sliced through a trio of Fisher defenders as he cut in from the right and his centre should have been converted by Ashmore, who miss-kicked the ball but he recovered to lay the ball off to the 21-year-old, who slammed the ball into the net.

Tunbridge Wells finished Fisher off after just three minutes and sixteen seconds into the second half.

Cornell started the move as he released Ashmore down the left, whose turn sent Abraham crashing to the ground and his centre towards the far post was hooked into the corner of the net by Cornell’s lethal left-foot.

“We said (we wanted) an early goal in the second half, to bring back the memories of what happened to them a few weeks ago against us - that’s what we got!”

Lisney pulled off a fine low save to his right to block Ashmore’s left-footed dipping shot from 30-yards, which was destined to curl into the bottom near corner in the 58th minute.

To their credit, Fisher showed some heart and took the game to Tunbridge Wells for the last 25 minutes, but the damage was already done.

The impressive George Savage was at the heart of all of their good moments and his out-swinging corner from the right was met by the unmarked Marco Bianchi, but his looping header was tipped over by Czanner from underneath the crossbar in the 68th minute.

Savage then swung in a right-footed corner from the left and substitute Scott Whibley was on hand to nod the ball off the line at the far post.

Savage then floated in an excellent free-kick - which took Czanner out of the game - but Hughes couldn’t steer the ball into the net from a very tight angle after ghosting in behind the Wells backline.

Despite Fisher’s resurgence, Tunbridge Wells wrapped up the win, against the run of play, inside stoppage time.

Mooney’s looping chip over the top of Fisher’s well-beaten defence was met by a delicate right-footed chip from Cornell, which dropped in underneath the crossbar of an open goal.

“He’s a good player,” added Larkin.  “He hasn’t been very well for the last couple of months. He’s been suffering with this flu bug and hasn’t been able to shift it but he keeps plugging away. He’s a really good player.  A lot has been said about him and we want to get him match fit again.”

Tunbridge Wells leapfrogged over Corinthian and Norton Sports into eighth place in the table with 29 points from 19 games.

“We want to be higher than that, so we need to keep plugging away,” said Larkin.  “We’ve got a very difficult game on Saturday against VCD but we want to get as many points on the board as we can.  We’ve set ourselves a goal, a target that we’re good enough to do.”

Lisney demands a positive reaction from his struggling players for Saturday’s bottom four home clash against Deal Town (who have also only scored 24 league goals this season).

“Perhaps people went out there tonight thinking it was just going to happen for them and have the same mental attitude that they’ve had over the last five games and that probably does explain some of our defending, which was absolutely awful,” said Lisney.

“People were leaving it for other people, not taking responsibility.  Whatever level you play at, if you haven’t got hunger or desire to actually be the one that makes the difference, you’re always going to struggle.”

When asked his thoughts on capitulating three times in eight minutes, the Fisher boss said: “We clearly weren’t mentally right tonight, whether there was other issues or not, I can’t really put my finger on it, but we certainly weren’t at the races tonight.

“I don’t think we had the desire or heart.

“I said to the players at half-time, 91 people have come through the gate to watch their team, to support their team and they must have felt disappointed and me too!

“It was 3-0 at half-time and we’ve given it a little bit of a go and the second half wasn’t anywhere near as woeful as the first half but it could never have been.  I could have taken four players off and played with six.  It couldn’t be as bad as it was first half!”

Lisney is confident Babalola turns down a potential move to Holmesdale, saying that playing in front of average gates of 100 at Champion Hill is far more beneficial than playing in front of 41 at Oakley Road.

Fisher are the fourth best supported club in the Kent League, Holmesdale the second worst.

He said: “I don’t know what Holmesdale could offer him.  I hear they don’t have a budget! We’ll find out what they’ve got to offer him that Fisher can’t.”

“They are one place lower than us in the league, I don’t believe their home ground is a patch on ours or their playing surface.  I don’t know what the attraction will be for Dexter to consider it personally, but that’s not my decision, that’s his.”

Lisney added: “I want to keep him. I want to keep all of my good players but that’s the situation we have to deal with.  We don’t have any budget, as I often say, so when players get approached by other clubs who can offer them something, it definitely hard to keep players here.

“Most of my players are fairly young, they’re not necessarily well off financially so every bit can count if their getting paid to do something they like doing.”

Fisher: Adam Lisney, Marc Hughes, Mark Lewis, Simon St Aimie, Cedric Abraham, Ernest Simon, George Savage, Marco Bianchi (Isa Bangura 77), Dwayne Cowan (Steve O’Donnell 67), Jimmy Beauchamp, Dexter Babalola (Juan Ramirez 89).

Subs: Luis Rozan, Tamba Ngongue

Booked: Dexter Babalola 52, Simon St Aimie 78

Tunbridge Wells: Michal Czanner, Jason Bourne, Alex Rich, Tom Davey (Sam Phillips 53), Andy Boyle, Perry Spackman (Scott Whibley 58), Jon Pilbeam, Andy McMath, Keelan Mooney, Carl Cornell, Steve Ashmore.

Subs: Drew Crush, Callum Hampson

Goals: Steve Ashmore 5, Perry Spackman 41, Keelan Mooney 43, Carl Cornell 49, 90

Booked: Sam Phillips 87

Attendance: 91

Referee:  Mr Rob Baker (Maidstone)

Assistants: Mr Steven Martin (Orpington) & Mr Mark Jenkins (Welling)