Sheppey boss Ernie Batten urged his title winners to savour the moment after landing the Southern Counties East Premier Division title on Saturday.

The Ites are on course for an incredible quadruple but after completing their league campaign with 102 points to edge out rivals Chatham, Batten was putting next week’s cup final to one side.

“It’s an amazing achievement,” beamed Batten. “We’ve gone for the cups as well as the league, and we’ve got two of them already in the previous season’s Kent Senior Trophy as well as this season’s one, and then we’re in the Challenge Cup final next Monday.

“What a group of players, I really can’t speak highly enough of them.

“If you’d seen us train on Thursday evening, the intensity of the session, you wouldn’t have thought it was the end of the season as they put so much effort and application into it.

“I said on Thursday that you’re looking at a group of serial winners and it doesn’t come along very often to get a group like this and all the attributes that we’ve got including a fantastic changing room and characters, and that’s culminated in what we’ve got today.

• Record crowd watch Sheppey win first title in 27 years

“We’ve got to celebrate this and enjoy this – that’s what football is for. We achieve and we enjoy, and that’s been the same all season so far.

“We’ll enjoy winning the league, and then Thursday and Saturday when we train we’ll be turning our attention to the Challenge Cup final.”

Sheppey had to wait 37 minutes before making the breakthrough against a dogged Tower Hamlets side at Holm Park.

But once ahead, the 1,282 record-breaking home crowd could enjoy the day – and the celebrations that followed.

“It was a little bit tense,” admitted Batten. “I thought we had a good tempo about us and we got the goal before half-time to go in one-nil ahead.

“Tower Hamlets put a lot into the game and you wouldn’t have thought that they were bottom of the league material.

“They gave us a real hard game but in the end our quality told, our fitness levels told and we got another couple of goals to put the icing on the cake.”

Sheppey lost only two matches all season – away to runners-up Chatham and at third-placed Glebe.

Their remarkable run of results saw them win every game – except one midweek draw at Fisher – that they’ve played since the end of January. That’s 24 wins from 25 games in all competitions.

“It’s incredible,” admitted Batten. “I don’t know how Chatham feel but to get 100 points with their goal difference and finish second...

“But again that’s testament to the group we’ve got, 102 points and two defeats all season in what is regarded as one of the hardest leagues to get out of in non-league football – it’s fantastic.

“We didn’t have a points target. We do our stats every 10 weeks and set targets within that and consistently, all season, we’ve identified stuff we need to improve on and we’ve reached those targets every 10 weeks.”