Hartsdown Park
Margate FC
Margate v Dover Athletic
Margate v Dover Athletic
Andy Hessenthaler’s squad continued their pre-season campaign with a second successive win after coming from behind to win at Margate.
The manager made a number of changes from Whites’ win at Hythe Town on Tuesday night, with Josh Passley, Will De Havilland, Joe Bedford, Steven Rigg and Jack Munns all coming in.
New signings, goalkeeper Josh Bexon, TJ Bramble and Sam Wood also started.
Both teams kept the ball well early on, with the first chance of the game not coming until the 15th minute through Margate’s Jack Richards, who curled the ball just over the bar from about 20 yards out.
Home goalkeeper Bailey Vose came to the rescue to keep the score goalless after Munns’ brilliant strike from outside the box was palmed away for a corner.
From the resulting corner, Dover took the lead when the ball eventually found its way through to Rigg who hammered the ball into the top of the net.
Margate leveled immediately through Conor Evans, who took his chance well, curling home from 20 yards out.
The home side almost went ahead through Lewis Carey shortly after their equaliser, but his shot was well saved by Bexon.
Dover made a number of changes at half-time, one saw Yusuf Mersin replacing Paxon and the big stopper was in the action immediately, clawing away a deflected free kick which looked destined to be a goal.
With 15 minutes to go, Margate took the lead through a brilliant strike from John Ufuah, who picked up the ball and curled it over Mersin.
Ufuah almost got his second shortly after, finding space and smashing the ball against the bar.
A trialist got Dover back on level terms with five minutes to go after the ball got slipped through to him and he was able to slot home from inside the box.
A couple of minutes later, the same trialist doubled his tally to put Dover ahead for the second time in the game after the Margate goalkeeper smashed the ball against the head of the defender, with the ball ricocheting to the trialist who was able to walk it into the empty net.