The Bears welcomed Erith Town to The BodyMould Community Stadium on the 1st March and the sun came out for a rare appearance to greet the players and supporters of both clubs who were anticipating a close encounter between the sides.

The visitors started well and were awarded a penalty in the fifth minute when Sean Terry was judged to have brought down Erith’s Ollie Milton. James Dyer stepped up to take the resulting spot kick which was saved brilliantly by Alfie Hadfield diving across to his right to push the ball away to safety.

Both sides had chances to break the deadlock but lacked the final clinical finish, for Heath on 21 minutes Louis Evans struck a left foot shot over the crossbar, while minutes later at the other end Milton dribbled his way past two defenders into the 18 yard box but then shot harmlessly straight at Hadfield.

The next chance fell to Heath’s Callum Dowdell in space down the left but his right foot shot from 16 yards flew high and wide of the target. Back to the other end and a corner was played in from the left and headed wide by an Erith player but just as it was looking likely to be all square at half-time the visitors struck when a free kick was awarded a yard outside the box, Bradley Ryan stepped up to take the kick with a right foot shot that dipped over the wall and into the net giving Hadfield no chance of stopping.

The Bears were level within 2 minutes of the restart when Luke Staight played a pass between two defenders allowing Mark Goldson to run through on goal and the Heath striker fired a low right foot shot under the advancing goalkeeper, Connor Clark.

Heath were now on the ascendency and deservedly took the lead on 58 minutes when a Dowdell corner from the left was headed home by Brad Peters at the near post and on 74 minutes it was 3-1, this time it was The Bears who were awarded a free kick some 25 yards from goal, Matt Hay stepped up and hit a right foot shot that stayed low and flew past Clark into the bottom right corner.

That should have been enough to have won the game for the Bears but the visitors were given a lifeline 8 minutes from time when a free kick from the left was played in towards the Heath penalty spot to Harry Taylor who got in front of his marker to steer the ball past Hadfield to make it 3-2.

Deep into injury time Erith pushed everyone forward in search of an equaliser and were rewarded when the ball was played into the penalty area from the left, Peters attempted clearance saw an Erith player upended, the match referee immediately pointed to the spot and James Miles stepped up and struck a low right foot shot to the left of Hadfield to bring the game to an end with both sides sharing the points.

Team: Hadfield, Staight, Fuller, Napper, Terry, Peters, Dowdell (Adam 71), Evans (Waddingham 77), Goldson (Whitelaw 90+5), Hay, Moteane (Frankland 77).