In last season's friendly against Margate, Whitstable were outplayed and outclassed. This time, Whitstable gave as good as they got. Although Margate came out pumping on all cylinders, with voices to match, there was a calm determination about the Oystermen, particularly in the first half. But if every other word from the players' mouths is going to be a swear word (as was the case with Margate), then there seems to be little point in trying to be more vocal. That said, Whitstable could have done with talking to eachother a little more than they did.

Ten minutes into the game, both Jack Tanner and Clint Gooding made bad backward passes. Liam Quinn managed to sweep up the potential trouble, Margate failing to capitalise. GS also made a nice interception. Apart from a Perona shot from an offside position, there was no shot on goal from either side until 20 minutes into game when a Margate player miscued weakly into the arms of Kevin Fewell. After that point in time, Ian Pulman was subject to a couple of bad decisions including a clear penalty shout. A few minutes later he was back defending for Town.

Half an hour on the clock and Margate got their first real chance on goal but the dread-locked player pulled his shot wide. Very little was going to get past the Quinn and Campbell partnership at centre back anyway. Four minutes into injury time of the first half, Margate's creative No.8 dribbled through the Whitstable midfield and shot from distance. But it was just wide. Six minutes into injury time, Ian Pulman was deemed to have been brought down in the area. It was a clean tackle and the defender got the ball, but it was perhaps justice after the other fouls that the referee had let pass. Pullie stepped up to take the penalty but his effort was well saved. That's the second penalty miss in as many games.

In the second half, Seags changed the sides completely for the second game in succession apart from giving Fewell another 20 minutes in goal. It was a quick turnaround and it was now Whitstable's turn to take the game to Margate who had controlled the latter part of the first half. Monday showed some good vision and was adept at dummying with his eyes. Pity those around him couldn't read him! Despite his advancing years, he looked good. He would make a good addition to the squad with his experience. At the back, there was some last ditch tackling from Eastwood as he was forced to tidy up a Tom Parker mis-distribution (something that happened far too often in this game). But within a few minutes, Whitstable counterattacked through Eastwood, Cory and Tommy Martin who whipped one in, but there was no-one on the end of it.

Eight minutes into the second half, Kevin Fewell was forced into another god save after yet another bad back pass. This time from Dan Whsiker whose frustration then boiled over into some handbags with the Margate players.

There was then a five minute spell where Tom Parker was guilty of 4 incompleted passes followed by the Margate No.8 scoring a scorcher from distance into the bottom right hand corner. There was nothing Jack Crawford who had replaced Fewell could have done about it. 73 minutes in and Margate were looking good value.

Whitstable did not lie down. Tommy Martin took on the attack, heeding the crowd's shouts of "shoot" as he found himself in a similar position as on Saturday (when he elected to pass, but his shot went wide), he shot. He was injured in the tackle coming in on him and he looked in pain. Hopefully he will be back soon. Jack Tanner came back on as Tommy's replacement.

As I wandered over to try to get a shot of the Margate manager, Whitstable mounted another attack. Cory took down a high ball, lobbed it back across the goal mouth and Whisker converted a well-taken goal.

With both managers driving on their teams from the side line, it seemed that Whisker's goal put Whitstable back in the ascendancy, but time was against them.

Eastwood and Tanner put in some good work down the right hand side, but the final minutes were marred by a bad tackle on Eastwood who needed an ice-pack on his knee after the game.

Seags showed his displeasure at the tackle by asking the ref whether he had ever played football after the ref asked if Eastwood was ok.