Matt Fish celebrated moving beyond the half-century of appearances for the Fleet with his first goal for the club on Saturday. The 6-0 rout of Hemel Hempstead Town was Fish’s 51st game in Fleet colours and he was one of six different goalscorers.
As the former Gillingham full-back told BBC Radio Kent’s Charles Webster, “I’ve been pushing on a lot this season and had a couple of chances, a couple of shots but normally I’m out wide crossing it in. Luckily [Charlie Sheringham] pulled it back, I’ve slid in and it’s gone in so I’m happy with it. It was an open game, we stretched them and got in behind them and a gap opened up and luckily I’ve got in there.
“I’d say at 3-0 the game was done and dusted. You could tell they were gone the way they were so open and the way we were just cutting through them. Our movement was so good. Obviously making it 4-0 buries them and then we’ve gone on and made it six and set our stall out for the rest of the season.”
With a handful games of remaining as the Fleet chase the Vanarama National League South title, Fish is confident his teammates can finish the job. “If we win four or five of them, hopefully it’ll be done and dusted but we can easily win six games,” he said. “We’ve set the bar now with a 6-0 home win. People thought our home form wasn’t great, which it wasn’t, so bring on the next team to come here on Easter Monday and we’ll see what happens then. We’ve been top for seven or eight months. We’ve never lost that spirit and as long as we keep playing like we did today then we’ll be champions.”
Fish sat out the previous three league games having been sent off at Truro City and although his time on the sidelines offered him a new perspective, he’s glad to be back in the thick of the action. “Sometimes it’s good to watch to see how much time you really have and you do get a different picture from the sideline,” Fish admitted. “But I said to the gaffer when I came in on Monday that I feel fit and ready to go. Thankfully he’s put me back in and hopefully I can keep my place for the six games we’ve got left.”
And Saturday’s 6-0 win, Fleet’s biggest victory margin in a league game at Stonebridge Road since 2004, has been coming for some time, says Fish, despite some struggles at home. “The way we play, there’s no pressure on any other team and they sit in and get us on the counterattack,” he said. “We normally have a lot of the ball but sometimes don’t take our chances and so one goal can kill us. But Saturday was totally different. We defended really well, obviously kept a clean sheet and I thought we were fantastic.
“It’s been coming all season – we played the four in centre midfield so we were able to get the full-backs up. Everyone in midfield is comfortable on the ball and playing that diamond does allow me and Bryan to get on which is a bit different to how we’ve been playing recently in a 4-4-2. But it’s not systems, it’s players at the end of the day and we did a job.”
