Darren Stevens’ fairy-tale finish to his Kent Spitfires career was made extra special at the weekend – with his two biggest fans watching on.

The iconic 46-year-old all-rounder was probably making his final Kent outing at Trent Bridge as Spitfires won the Royal London One-Day Cup final over Lancashire.

Stevens was cheered to the rafters by every Kent supporter, but he was thrilled that sons Flynn and Leo were both in the crowd to watch their dad on the winning side.

“The kids love it, and Flynn my eldest came to the final last year,” said Stevens.

“Now my littlest Leo was here this year, he’s around the right age to remember it.

“The oldest gets very emotional and I think he’ll remember this year and last year for a long time.”

Asked if the children are allowed to join in with chants of ‘Stevo’ at home, he joked: “No - I get abuse if I don’t play cricket in the garden!”

Stevens described the sight of so many Kent fans wanting to shake his hand and have a picture taken after the final as emotional.

It was probably a touch overwhelming as well, it’s been many years since a Kent player has enjoyed such a connection with the fanbase.

“It’s emotional,” he stated. “Hopefully it’s not the end and I carry on playing somewhere else. If it is, then what a way to go out.

“Stevo is God – talk me through that! It’s so nice, they’re still around. I’ve had so many lads say can I buy you a beer.

“As you know I’d love to stay on but it doesn’t look like that’s happening. I want to keep playing at the minute, so we’ll see what door opens and see where I go.”

The momentum of Kent winning a trophy this season has grown alongside the feeling that the squad wanted Stevens to sign off in style with more silverware.

With so many counties fighting for honours, winning two trophies in as many seasons is still a big achievement.

“This is what our job’s about,” said Stevens. “When you’re a professional cricketer it’s about winning trophies and winning three with Kent now in 17 years.

“You want to win a trophy every year but it’s so hard because there are so many good teams out there. I suppose winning two T20s and a One-Day Cup is a good feeling.

“I think the bigger picture was the trophy. We needed to win that game to go to the next stage, and then the next stage, and then the semi-final at Hampshire was we’ve got to win that game.

“Through the whole tournament, when we started winning, it wasn’t (just) one person standing up, it was actually somebody else (each time).”

Stevens, who described man-of-the-match Joey Evison as “a little gem”, didn’t feel it was a pitch where he could come in and start hitting the ball to the boundary at will.

He also acknowledged the difference in the fielding between the two teams.

He added: “When I came in to bat - I feel like I’m in a bit of nick - I didn’t feel I could take them down.

“Knocking them around was easy but in one-day cricket nowadays you’ve got to find a way of hitting the boundaries.

“I kept saying to Blakey and Finchy when they came in that a run a ball takes us to 300, so if we can do that and get the odd boundary then we might get 310, 315.

“I think that (the fielding) was the standout between both sides, they dropped a lot of catches. That could have been 260 and it’s a different ball game then.

“We’ve had a couple of games where we’ve not been quite on it but most of the time we’ve been in a good place in the field.”