Southern Counties East League round-up: Deal Town reach last eight of FA Vase, Erith Town into Kent Senior Trophy Final, Lordswood shock Faversham Town in Premier Division
Published: 21:08, 17 February 2024
Updated: 14:10, 18 February 2024
Deal kept their FA Vase dream alive after a penalty shoot-out win at Bridgwater United in round five on Saturday.
Having led 2-0 after 20 minutes, Deal saw their lead wiped out and had to play the final half-hour with 10 men after Macauley Murray collected two yellow cards.
Deal led after two minutes through Tom Chapman’s 25-yarder and he then turned provider for Rory Smith to double their advantage.
But Bridgwater responded when Ben Griffith scored on 54 minutes and Deal were then reduced to 10 men. The home side made it 2-2 through Jack Thorne with 20 minutes left and then had a goal ruled out for offside.
The tie went to penalties and it was Deal who booked a Quarter-Final trip to Lincoln United by winning the shoot-out 6-5.
Lincoln drew 2-2 at Hallam in their Fifth-Round game and then went through via a penalty shoot-out, 7-6.
Erith Town will play either Whitstable or Croydon in the Kent Senior Trophy Final after putting lower-league Larkfield & New Hythe to the sword.
The Dockers ran out 8-2 winners after they had raced into a three-goal lead inside 19 minutes and were 8-0 ahead just after the hour mark.
Harry Taylor led the way with a hat-trick, James Dyer scored twice with Ladic Melconian, Ollie Milton and Jake Lovell rounding off their tally. A Matt Day penalty and Kwasi Amaoh added consolation goals for Larkfield in the last seven minutes. Larkfield had keeper Jordan Carey red-carded when it was 5-0.
Lordswood are a much-changed team from the side that won at Faversham in the Kent Senior Trophy in November but they ensured that lightning still struck twice by winning their Southern Counties East Premier Division clash on Saturday.
Lords raced into a 3-0 half-time lead and Nicky Southall’s men did enough in the second half to come away with maximum points.
Former Sheppey striker Alex Willis put Lordswood ahead after five minutes and Quadri Green added a second within 60 seconds as the visitors made a blistering start.
Willis added a second before the break against his hometown club and, while Stefan Payne and substitute Warren Mfula replied in the final 15 minutes, it was not enough to rescue a point for the home side.
Glebe extended their lead at the top to six points with a 4-0 home win over VCD. Darion Dowrich put them on their way and the evergreen Jamie Coyle added a second before the half-hour.
Second-half goals from Rodney Eruotor and Marcel McDonald wrapped up the points.
Corinthian took advantage of Faversham’s slip-up and Deal’s FA Vase clash to move into second courtesy of a 2-1 success at Welling Town.
Dominic Wynter-Stephens put Town ahead but Sam Bewick levelled just before half-time and Oscar Housego scored the winning goal just before the hour mark.
Bearsted’s play-off push continued with a 3-0 home win over Rusthall. All the goals came in the first 37 minutes courtesy of Jack Palmby, Joel Wakefield and Louis Lovell.
An early Teddy Jones goal was enough for Fisher to win at Tunbridge Wells while Snodland won 2-0 at Sutton Athletic thanks to Robbie Bissett and Francis Babalola.
Punjab United ran out 2-1 winners at home to Stansfeld after a late winner from Chris Edwards. Jack Mahoney had earlier cancelled out Cruis Nyadzayo’s early opener for the hosts.
Harvey Welford took just three minutes to open the scoring against his former club as Lydd got the better of Hollands & Blair. Jack Nelson added a second for Lydd before Devonte West pulled one back in the second half for the visitors.
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Matthew Panting