He had endured an injury-hit season - but Deal skipper Kane Smith returned to the pitch just in time to get the title celebrations started.

Centre-back Smith came off the substitutes’ bench late on to replace Alex Green as champions Deal finished their 2023/24 Southern Counties East Premier Division season with a 3-0 home win over Stansfeld in front of a bumper crowd of 1,598 at the Charles Sports Ground last month.

While vice-captain Macauley Murray, fellow defender Alfie Foster and striker Aaron Millbank - alongside departing legendary striker Connor Coyne - wore the armband on the final day, there has never been much doubt over who the main leader of the Hoops’ playing group has been.

Boss Steve King said: “He’s been massive off the pitch for us.

“I thought he was excellent in the first half of the season. Obviously, he picked up an unfortunate injury - but he has been an absolute ever-present.

“Kane travels home and away, leads the group, whether he’s been playing or not playing.

“Everybody in the dressing room knows he's the captain. There’s only one person that we wanted to lift the trophy.

“He’s been working hard to get back fit. Obviously once the league was tied up, we weren’t going to rush him and risk him, picking up an injury that was going to delay his pre-season.

“But he was fit enough to play five or 10 minutes and, at 3-0, we could say to him ‘Go on and just don’t do anything stupid!’.

“We wanted him to be on the pitch.

“We somehow worked it so that all four of our main ‘captains’ all wore the armband at some point, as well as Coyney, so we got through five captains.

“Aaron Millbank, Macca Murray and Alfie Foster all had the armband on at some point during the game. It was quite nice that they all got recognised for their role from a leadership point of view.”

Deal had wrapped up the title and promotion to Step 4 football for the first time in nearly 50 years a fortnight before their final league fixture, winning 3-1 at home to Lydd in front of another crowd of more than 1,000.

But an even larger attendance arrived to see the day when King and his troops were actually presented with the trophy and their medals.

Comparing their promotion party to the day when they sealed top place against the Lydders, King said: “It was more enjoyable when we played Stansfeld.

“You could sort of plan for it. The day that we won it, it was just elation and relief that you have got over the line.

“The lovely thing about the Stansfeld game was we could get our families there, people who are important to us, we could plan together to get all the photos that we wanted.

“We could really soak it up and make sure we made it a memorable day.”