Under the gaze of the BT Sport cameras, the “Hess Express” steamrollered their way back into the most famous velvet bag in the world and sent Sol Campbell’s Southend United back through the Dartford Tunnel as another side listed in the annuls of the Greatest Cup Competition in the World under U for “Upsets”.
The SKYBet League One Shrimpers’ problems have been well identified this season and their recent showing against Gillingham at Priestfield really was as poor as poor can be! But, take nothing away from Andy Hessenthaler and his National League side as they fully deserved a place in Monday’s draw for Round Two.
On the day, it really was a tale worthy of the great competition – a competition that the Dover boss holds so dearly – as debut making substitute Ruel Sotiriou earned himself a place in Crabble history by blasting home across Southend keeper Nathan Bishop with only six minutes left for the game’s only goal.
Ironically the 19-year-old Cypriot is on loan at Crabble from Leyton Orient, who themselves were on the wrong end of upset later Sunday afternoon by Maldon and Tiptree where former Ashford striker Danny Parrish scored the first in a 2-1 win for the Bet Victor North side.
Dover started an evenly contested first half brightly and after ten minutes had Southend keeper Bishop scrambling to claw away a great cross after Bobby-Joe Taylor’s searching ball into the box looking for Jack Munns had been well cleared by Nathan Ralph.
Ifih Effiong thought he’d found the vital advantage in the early stages of the second half as he controlled a Taylor free kick well, but Dover’s top scorer couldn’t hook his foot round the ball and flew into the crowd.
Jai Reason then sent a drive high into the crowd from a corner as the home side tried to impose themselves on the game more and more even if it was without really working Bishop and his defence. Increasingly they were restricting Southend to breaks just frustratingly for the Crabble faithful without creating that much themselves in the final third.
The Southend keeper was left on the deck however on 68 minutes when Paul Rooney beat Bishop to a left-wing corner only to see his header fly just too high! Substitute Nassim L’Ghoul had only been on the pitch for three minutes when his header from Aaron Simpson’s cross sent Bishop to his knees to make an important save.
There was though nothing the Southend keeper could do in the 84th minute when Sotiriou battled through on the right-hand side and only had one thing on his mind. Effiong was pleading for the cut back but the youngster drove hard for goal and just three minutes after coming on drilled home the goal that sent Dover through.
Finally, it stirred Southend and almost straight from kick off Dover were indebted by L’Ghoul’s fabulous tackle to deny Elvis Bwomono. It could have been even better for Dover as Reason’s late strike clipped the bar, but by then the writing really was on the wall for Campbell and his side as they became (because of the lunchtime kick off) the first League side to be beaten.
Dover Athletic then take their place in Monday’s draw after their first win over a League side in five years leaving their boss to contemplate another FA Cup tale to tell the grandchildren. For Andy Hessenthaler, there really is something special in the Greatest Cup Competition in the World…
DOVER ATHLETIC – Mersin, Simpson, Doe, Rooney, Taylor, Reason, Gobern (L’Ghoul 73), Woods, Munns (Cumberbatch 88), Effiong, Rigg (Sotiriou 80)
Subs – Worgan, Bedford, Jeffrey, Ratti
SOUTHEND UNITED – Bishop, Bwomono, Shaughnessy (Kiernan 60), Dieng, Lennon, Ralph, McLaughlin (Acquah 72), Hamilton, Hutchinson, Goodship (Cox 72), Hopper
Subs – Oxley, Demetriou, Milligan, Taylor
REFEREE – Mr Rock