Havant & Waterlooville 1 Welling 0

Without the spine of their team, Welling suffered a late defeat at Havant in their final Blue Square South game of the season on Saturday.

The Wings were missing defender Chris Moore, who became a father the previous day, skipper Richard Carpenter (hamstring) and striker Sam Gargan, who was recalled by Brighton 24 hours earlier.

The game looked certain to end in a goalless draw until Charlie Henry burst forward with three minutes left and scored beyond keeper Jamie Turner.

It was particularly harsh on Turner, who minutes earlier has produced an impressive save to keep out Rocky Baptiste’s penalty.

Welling boss Andy Ford said: “I’m disappointed that we didn’t carry on our unbeaten run but the spine of the team were missing for various factors.

“You can sometimes cover one or two, but to have three players out was hard to replace within our squad.

“The first half was typical end of the season stuff, but we did improve in the second half. Danny Phillips came on and made his mark but some of the others didn’t do the jobs that we wanted.”

Meanwhile, it was a double celebration for defender Moore last week as he was also voted player of the year by the club’s fans – and Ford confirmed that Moore remains part of his plans for next season.

“I hope so,” he said. “I’ve been told that he is 36 now but he doesn’t seem to change – he is very dependable and the break he had out of the team this season did him well, he came back a lot stronger.”