Ashford United and Beckenham Town have been banned from next season’s Kent Senior Trophy.

The decision was made by the Kent FA’s competitions committee after the brawl which marred the end of last season’s Trophy final between the clubs at Tonbridge, which Beckenham won 4-0.

The clubs had already been fined by the Kent FA’s disciplinary committee but county officials decided that the incident was serious enough to warrant a further sanction.

Kent FA chief executive Paul Dolan said: "Taking this action will hopefully send out a signal that such behaviour will not be tolerated at any of our county cup finals.

"We felt that issuing just a fine did not send out a strong enough message."

However, Ashford manager Paul Chambers admitted he wasn't overly upset.

He said: "It’s a shame, and I don’t understand why we’ve been banned, because I don’t think we did a lot wrong.

"But, to be honest, it’s one less distraction for us to have to worry about next season.

"We had to play a few games in it last season, which we could have done without, and the Kent Senior Trophy is the least concern to us out of everything."