Kentish Football 
We all have to pitch in, says Tonbridge Angels defender Ben Judge
Monday 14th March 2011
TONBRIDGE ANGELS’ defender Ben Judge says his team-mates must adapt to the hard conditions underfoot between now and the end of the season, writes Stephen McCartney.
The Angels grabbed three points against foes Maidstone United at the weekend, courtesy of a Carl Rook header during a first half which The Stones dominated.
Tonbridge were indebted to the striker, who is on loan until the end of the season from Dartford, for grabbing the points and keeping their promotion push on track.
“It was a tough game, we knew it was going to be a tough,” admitted Judge, who wore the captain’s armband. Maidstone were down the bottom fighting for everything.
“The pitch didn’t help us out there, now it’s bobbling as anything and it’s hard to get it down. It was a battle.
“Just before we scored they were definitely on top for a good 10-15 minutes so it was important we held in there and Rookie pulled off at the far pot and that’s what he does. We’re lucky to get away with that especially the first half and then second half they created a few chances. We didn’t create many chances ourselves. It just petered out, the game, a little bit.”
The win ended a run of three successive draws and Judge is looking forward to the business end to the season, with nine games remaining, starting with a trip to Canvey Island on Saturday.
“We haven’t drawn many this season,” said the 33-year-old.
“We drew three in a row and when you’re at this stage of the season draws aren’t really much good. You might as well win two and lose one other than draw three in a row so it was nice to get a win back. We’ve had two clean sheets in a row, which is important as well and we’ll go to the next game at Canvey now.”
The Angels are currently in third place in the Ryman Premier League table and Judge is looking forward to the trip to Essex.
He said: “They played well against us when we played them a couple of weeks ago and they had some good chances and we got a draw with them, didn’t we?
“Another tough game, but there all going to be tough now as either teams go for the play-off’s or fighting relegation so you’re not going to have an easy game now especially when conditions have changed a bit with the weather we had through the winter.
“Every pitch is going to be not the greatest now so we’ll have to contend with that.”
Visit Tonbridge Angels’ website: www.tonbridgeangels.co.uk
Canvey Island v Tonbridge Angels
Ryman Premier League
Saturday 19th March 2011
Kick Off 3:00pm
At Park Lane, Canvey Island, Essex SS8 7PX
Red Dragon I.T. Ltd