Margate suffered a nightmare afternoon at Hartsdown Park as they were heavily beaten 5-0 by Merstham in the Isthmian South-East.
Manager Jamie Coyle made just one change from the encouraging draw again Hastings United four days previously as he brought Mikey Dalton back into the starting XI in place of on-loan Malachi Mbogba.
In truth, chalk and cheese wouldn’t even describe the difference from Tuesday into Saturday. Margate were poor all afternoon and fell behind in ten minutes as Gil Carvalho tapped home from a corner to set the afternoon off on the wrong tone.
From there it got worse as Antonio Hamilton raced through several bodies before firing past Harry Seaden to make it 2-0 within 14 minutes.
In all honesty it remained 2-0 until half-time but only through wasteful finishing and some last ditch defending from Margate.
The Blues fans were hoping that the wind now being with their side and a half-time talking to might improve the performance as the storm clouds gathered, however, the performance remained flat and Merstham added a third as Carvalho pounced on a woeful back pass to slip in a third for the visitors.
Vinne Tume made it four not long after as Margate were on the ropes.
Margate were unable to create a single effort on goal and they fell further behind as the visitors added a fifth as Olu Lawal broke free from a Margate attack to add a fifth and condemn the ‘Gate to a heavy home defeat.
If you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. With nine minutes remaining the Blues were reduced to ten men as David Adewoju received a second yellow card and was sent from the field of play.
Margate XI: Seaden, Hamill, Adewoju, Iandolo (Huke 64’), Schafer, Oldfield (Thomas 87’), Duncan (Sithole 65’), O’Mara, Dalton (Mbogba 46’), Tyrie, Nalbant (Splatt 65’)
Attendance
363
