French anvades the Byrne's night party
By Paul Baker

Wednesday 8th December 2004

Charitable Terras show festive spirit.

DON'T tell the little 'uns, but Santa Claus came to town a week early on Saturday.

Disguised as 11 Weymouth footballers, he gift-wrapped Conference South strugglers Margate a much needed point at the Wessex Stadium.

Twice the out-of-sorts Terras took the lead against the Kent visitors as they looked to enter the festive season closing in on one of those four coveted
play-off places.

But twice they threw away those advantages gained by new boy Bernardo Cariata and Kirk Jackson with all four goals coming during an explosive 14-minute period just after the break.

In the end they were hanging on for their lives and were lucky to escape with a point to their name.

They might be languishing towards the foot of the table, but it was Margate who started brightly gaining two corners in as many minutes from the kick off.

The first was earned after Matt Bound deflected John Keister's shot from the edge of the box wide with Adrian Clarke's free kick bouncing off Roy O'Brien knee's for the second.

Nothing came of either although Margate continued to look dangerous early on and Sierra Leone star Keister was guilty of smashing a great opportunity down the home straight of the speedway track on 10 minutes.

Weymouth's new-look side took an age to get going although it was a pair of old favourites who combined to carve their first real chance on the quarter hour.

lan Hutchinson's gorgeous through ball was seized upon by Lee Phillips
who dragged his effort just wide under pressure from two defenders.

Phillips then turned provider as the Terras upped the tempo briefly but his
superb pull back from the left hand byline was squeezed just wide by strike partner Jackson at the near post.

The contest ebbed and flowed as Rocky Baptise curled just over Jason
Matthews' goal moments later and Angolan international Cariata nodding a Hutchinson set-piece off target at the other end.

But despite all that attacking action, both sides lacked any quality or bite in
the final third although the visitors would have been happy to have gone
into the interval with the scoreline goalless.

Margate began the second half on the offensive with Baptise smacking a
drive inches over the upright.

But it was Weymouth who broke the deadlock on 50 minutes after Keister had needlessly up-ended Phillips wide on the right.

Hutchinson took a quick free kick which caught the Terras' opponents napping and in dived debutant Cariata with a powerful bullet header that Margate keeper and Somerset county cricketer Peter Trego could only push into the roof of his net.

The Terras lead lasted only four minutes after the hosts stood around and allowed Baptise to break from his own half to the edge of Matthews' penalty area.

When he was finally challenged he laid the ball off to his skipper Clarke who curled a stunning 15-yard effort to make it 1-1.

Back came Weymouth with Phillips striking the post from an acute angle, before restoring their advantage in the 61st minute.

Phillips opened up the Gate defence with an inch-perfect ball for Jackson
to run on to and the ex-Yeovil man made no mistake, sliding the ball beautifully beneath the advancing Trego.

Three minutes later the Kent outfit were level again when more indecisive
defending allowed them to win a corner on the left.

Clarke delivered into a crowded six-yard box where the unmarked Ross Smith flicked his header beyond a despairing dive from Matthews on the keeper's 100th league outing for the Wessex Stadium club.

This time there was no quickfire response from Steve Johnson's men, quite the opposite in fact.

From that moment on Margate dominated proceedings in the driving rain as Baptise and Darren Watson each went agonisingly close to putting their side in front.

The Terras meanwhile continually lost out in the middle of the park with Jackson and Phillips cutting lone and frustrated figures up front.

And they very nearly paid for their charitable ways in the last minute of the contest.

To a man the hosts backed off in alarming fashion to give Peter Benevides the time and space he needed to fire a drive that brushed the outside of the post with Matthews well beaten.