Beckenham Town were to win their first ever Kent Senior Trophy with a comfortable 4-0 win over Ashford United on Sunday.

For the record, Becks lead at HT through James Marshall, but it was a lead that they extended by Travis Gregory, Alex Wilks and Jamie Humphries to seal a Trophy win for which their club have waited nearly 125 years for.

Beckenham thought they’d won a penalty after only three minutes as Humphries went down, but the referee waved play on.

They did though take the lead on 10 minutes when James Marshall drilled the ball into the bottom corner beyond the dive of Joe Mant in the Ashford goal.

Ashford will have been disappointed that they couldn’t reply to the marker that had been laid down against them as they struggled to come to terms with a Town defence that was brilliantly marshalled by former Maidstone defender Nathan Paul who was easily the best player on the pitch.

Indeed their best chances came when Liam Whiting drilled the ball across the face of the Beckenham goal before Becks keeper Rilwan Anibaba made a great save to deny Sam Conlon as Ashford had their first chance of any note.

Conlon then combined with Sam Fisher, shot just wide, but that was just about as good as it got.

And anything that was decided in the dressing rooms at half time was almost immediately blown away as Travis Gregory netted Beckenham’s second.

Humphries was again involved with a terrific run to the goal line, and when it seemed he’d been blocked in, he wriggled clear, and coolly rolled the ball across the six yard box for the arriving Gregory who slammed the ball into the net.

Conlon then lobbed over on a rare Ashford break, before Pat Kingwell crossed for Adam Cuthbert but the ball was just too far in front of the diving striker.

As the minutes ticked by, Ashford seemed to run out of ideas whilst Beckenham sub Alex Wilks was denied by a brilliant tackle by Whitting.

The game took another twist as Ashford were concerned as Beckenham sub Joe Jackson was unluckily shown a second yellow card for a clumsy challenge and his Cup Final was over, and it was soon three nil as keeper Anibaba launched a huge kick down field.

Wilks did very well to hold of the presence of the last defender to slide the ball wide of the advancing keeper.

The referee then evened the sides up at ten a side as Liam Whiting was unfortunate to see a second yellow for what appeared to be a clean tackle, and after 85 minutes his game was over…

The cherry was put on top of the Beckenham cake in stoppage time when another long clearance fell this time to the incredibly hard working Humphries beat Adam Wadmore to the bounce before battling past the keeper to wrap up with what had been a pretty comfortable afternoon for Jason Huntley’s side..

Indeed the Beckenham boss deserves a great deal of credit for speaking to KSN immediately after the scenes had been quietened by the stewards after an incident at the end of the game. “I can’t see exactly what happened – I’m told that one of our supporters has got hit and it just kicked off from the but it’s spoiled a great day.”

“We’ve had a great performance and it’s totally spoilt it. And not doing the presentation is unfair on the players – they’ve worked hard for 90 minutes and it’s just ruined their day.”

“ It’s the first Senior Trophy in the club’s history and we’re not going to get it when we should just because of some bad sportsmanship from their supporters!”

“Our football was superb today – all my players worked their socks off today and deserved to win – we’ve totally outplayed them for 95 minutes; totally outplayed and then THAT!”

And then as Police sirens sounded, “Huntley concluded, “We should be here celebrating now with the Trophy, and having all the photographs taken and god knows whatever. But it’s ended in a fracas and has totally ruined it for everyone!”

 

ASHFORD TOWN – Joe Mant, Luke Cuthbert. Liam Whiting, Gary Clarke, Jordan Miller, Ben Jordan, Sam Fisher Tom Scorer 55), Adam Cuthbert, Sam Conlon (Michael Smissen 71), Pat Kingwell (Gary Mickleborough 73), Ronnie Dolan

Subs not used – Jimmy Dryden and Ira Jacksoffn

BECKENHAM TOWN – Rilwan Anibaba, Adam Wadmore, Steve McNamara (Joe Jackson 14), Charlie Helps, Nathan Paul, Alfie Nunn, James Marshall, Jake Britnell, Damon Ramsamy (Alex Wilks 63), Jamie Humphries, Travis Gregory (Jalloh Gassium 86)

Subs not used – Jamie Turner and Jason Rose