Toby McKimm misses out on a league debut for Tonbridge this weekend as he’s playing for his school.

Angels are without first-choice goalkeeper Jonny Henly, who serves a one-match ban following his red card at Oxford City.

That would have been opened the door for manager’s son McKimm to line up against Braintree at Longmead tomorrow but the 17-year-old, named man-of-the-match in Angels’ Kent Senior Cup win over Maidstone last month, has a school game.

“Toby’s unavailable, otherwise he would have played,” said Tonbridge boss Steve McKimm, who has a stand-in for Henly lined up.

“I wouldn’t have had a problem playing him. Forget the inexperience, he would have played but he has another commitment with his school team.

“It’s a winner-takes-all game for the independent schools, he’s played all season and school is his priority at the moment.

“It’s fallen on the wrong day for him because he’d have loved to have played but I’ve got to be fair to what his commitments were before he signed for us.

“He’s been committed to his school for the last five years, I don’t expect him to drop it just because I want him to play in goal for me.”

Outfield player Jamie Fielding took the gloves at Oxford after Henly was sent off for handling outside his area after 10 only minutes.

The visitors did their best to protect Fielding, who made a couple of fine saves, but City won 5-0.

Angels were without a substitute keeper as McKimm was with Merstham as part of a dual-registration agreement.

“It’s hard for a manager to say to someone ‘you’ve got to go in goal’ because they might not feel comfortable but Jamie volunteered and all credit to him," said McKimm.

“It was unfortunate he let five in but there’s no blame on him for any of the goals.

“He went in goal as a favour to the team and he did his best. The players appreciated it and the staff appreciated it.”

McKimm was unhappy with referee Marc Whaley, branding him “arrogant” after the game.

He had no problem with the result but took exception to the way his players were spoken to.

“Referees have got a tough job and I fully understand that but you can’t be as arrogant as that towards players,” said McKimm.

“I’ve had refs who don’t want to talk to you, which is up to them, but I’ve never had a referee, even when I was playing, as arrogant as the man was on Saturday.

“That wasn’t the reason we lost, we lost because we had a player sent off and Oxford are very good with the ball.

“It hurt us having a player sent off, especially a goalkeeper.

“Sometimes you can get away with it when it’s an outfield player but we had to put more protection on to Jamie because of how good they could have been and how good they were.

“My feelings on the ref were nothing to do with the loss of points or getting beat 5-0.”

It’s a big few days coming up as Angels play the two sides immediately above them in National South, with the Braintree game followed by Concord away on Tuesday.

Braintree, whose boss Ryan Maxwell was named manager-of-the-month for February, are one of the form teams in the division.

From looking in big trouble, the Iron are three points ahead of Tonbridge in 16th place but have played two games more.

“I think they’ve won four of the last six, drawn one and lost one, which is brilliant,” said McKimm.

“Ryan Maxwell is really good at what he does in terms of getting players at it.

“I’ve known him a number of years and he’s a top fella who wears his heart on his sleeve.

“They were in a bad situation, and he’ll say they’re still not out of trouble, but they’ve given themselves one hell of a chance of staying up with the run they’ve been on.

“The rest of us in that bottom area are looking to emulate that and climb the table.”

Tonbridge welcome back winger Joe Turner after partner Lorna gave birth to the couple's first child, Hallie, on Sunday.

"He's on cloud nine," said McKimm.