Spectators who made the journey to Parkside on Sunday afternoon, and those who tuned in via YouTube, saw 8 goals in a chaotic 90 minutes that left manager Andy Drury bemoaning his side’s defensive errors.

The return of captain Ian Gayle was a welcome one that allowed Amadou Kassaraté to push forward into the midfield, with Jack Jebb missing out with an illness.

Invicta were given a taste of what was to come after just 3 minute when winger Josh Osude drove to the byline and cut back to Alex Bolovan who hit the outside of the post when it looked easier to score.

It didn’t take long for the hosts to correct that miss, Osude doing it himself in the 10th minute after beating the offside trap, rounding Jonny Henly and finishing into an empty net to open the scoring.

Invicta continued to ride their luck as a well worked move ended with Bolovan again striking the woodwork, aiming his effort high against Henly’s near post from a tight angle.

Having not made Invicta pay earlier on, Hashtag were riding luck of their own on the half hour mark as Bolovan beat Marvel Ekpiteta to a Nathan Green cross, turning it onto the inside of the post before Kassaraté was denied by a combination of defender and goalkeeper on the goal-line.

Invictas equaliser came just a few short minutes later. A header from Gayle on halfway evade the jump of Yusuff and his marker and fell to Joe Turner who slide it through to Evans Kouassi who twisted his defender and bent an effort inside the far corner to level the score.

Kouassi’s goal kicked off a mad period that saw 3 goals in a matter of minutes. Invicta had barely finished celebrating when a long ball in behind found the rapid Osude again, the ball squared to Luke May-Parrott who saw Henly get a hand to his shot but the Invicta no. 1 was unable to keep it out.

Invicta were level again before the crowd had chance to draw breath. Kouassi and Hoyte worked a crossing opportunity for the latter on the right flank, Turner jumped with his defender with neither able to get a clean header on the ball that dropped nicely for Yusuff to lash inside the far post for his 5th goal in 7 appearances.

Osude continued to terrorise the Invicta defence after the break and created Hashtag’s 3rd goal shortly before the hour mark. Racing onto an error from Green, the winger cut back again to May-Parrott who saw a first effort saved by Henly but found the net at the second attempt.

Just 5 minutes later the forward completed his hat-trick after intercepting a start pass from Ekpiteta and rounding Henly to finish into an empty net to give Invicta a mountain to climb.

The 2-goal cushion lasted just 3 minutes, substitute Joel-Michael Odeniran picked out Luke Allen on the edge of the penalty area, the midfielder finding Kouassi who shifted onto his right and fired across the keeper into the bottom corner with precision.

The afternoon may have turned just a couple of minutes later when Turner curled an effort towards the top corner, only to see it flick the top of the crossbar. But unfortunately Invicta’s scoring was done and it was Hashtag who would grab the afternoon’s 8th with little over 10 minutes remaining. Unsurprisingly it came from Osude again, who beat substitute Frankie Morgan to keep a pass from going out of play and cut it back to May-Parrott who got a slight touch before it was tapped home from inches out by Sakariya Hassan.

Kouassi forced a save from Hashtag goalkeeper Jack Giddens during 8 minutes of injury time that denied the Invicta man a hat-trick of his own, but the result never looked in doubt during the closing stages of proceedings.

Invicta now look ahead to a 4th consecutive away fixture as we travel to Cray Wanderers on Saturday 25th February, a first ever visit to their new home at Flamingo Park. Back-to-back home fixtures follow, with Chichester City visiting on Tuesday 25th for our rearranged fixture before we kick off March with the visit of Potters Bar Town.