After another day of finals, the last one of the day – the Sunday Premier – saw Quested ease to yet another Kent Cup triumph as they saw off the challenge of Hollingbourne.
Steve Lester’s squad, boasting six of the Hollands and Blair squad that were confirmed the Kent Invicta League champions this weekend and two of the Phoenix Sports Southern Counties East Football League champions, opened the scoring after 4 minutes through James MacDonald and never looked back.
Stuart West doubled the advantage four minutes from half time, before MacDonald raced onto a great through ball to score his second and Quested’s fourth, and on the hour West converted his second to give the Medway side a fourth.
MacDonald duly completed his hat trick with a quarter of an hour to go, before Jack West battled through to score the sixth.
Hollingbourne did pull one back from Brett Ince’s free kick but there was still time for West to complete his treble and a memorable afternoon for the Medway side.
In fairness Hollingbourne’s task wasn’t helped by the 44th dismissal of Dave Illingworth following a clash with Ricky Freeman, but the Final was already won by then.
Steve Lester, the Quested boss admitted to KSN after the game that that was just about the perfect performance from his side.
He said, “most definitely, it was better than last year and strikers got hat tricks… yes it’s been brilliant!”
“I saw Hollingbourne last Sunday in their Maidstone Cup Final and I knew what to expect, but I know that over the course of the 90 minutes I always believed that we’d do enough. “
“Every year we’re top of the pile and are always looking to bring in new players – it’s hard work, but the manager must be doing something right huh?” Lester added grinning before he went off to celebrate Quested’s third time winning this Trophy.
And to be fair, you got the feeling that Hollingbourne keeper Rayan Chandler was in for a busy evening and that it could be a rout as soon as MacDonald had shot home in the 4th minute.
Freeman then had a header cleared off of the line from Lewis Taylor’s cross, whilst at the other end, from what proved to be a rare Hollingbourne attack, Ince’s ball into the box could have gone anywhere before being cleared.
The last four minutes of the half were to prove decisive at the end of the day as firstly West doubled the lead on 41 minutes turning home Freeman’s centre, before in the last minute of the half Freeman tangled with Illingworth, leaving Mr Marriott in no doubt but to show the Hollingbourne defender a straight red card.
If there were any thoughts of a Hollingbourne recovery, they were completely banished by the hour mark as both MacDonald (with a low drive) and West (with a far post tap in) had doubled their respective tallies to two each and Quested’s to four.
MacDonald was first to complete his hat trick on 75 minutes as he drilled the ball past the advancing Chandler with some aplomb, before full back West got in on the act and deserved his goal as he battled past three defenders before making a recovery tackle as he shot low past Chandler’s right hand for Quested’s sixth.
West wasn’t to be out done and duly completed his own hat trick on 87 minutes rising effortlessly to head home a left wing cross.
It could have been even better for West in stoppage time but as he was seemingly put clean through Chandler raced ten yards outside his box hammering the ball into the crowd almost pleading with the official that enough was enough as the final whistle blew.
A bemused looking Hollingbourne boss Paul Nowotny admitted to KSN that his side had been well beaten…
“We gave a bit of an account of ourselves until the second half, and having one sent off didn’t help did it? A hill suddenly became a mountain”, he added shrugging his shoulders.
“But we’re just happy to be here. We’ve beaten some good sides to get here, so we’re pleased to have gotten here.”
“Sure the sending off changed things – can’t complain about the sending off, but I will say that most of the time in those instances aren’t both players usually sent off?”
“It’s one of those things that happened in a highly competitive game, but we’ve had a great run and loved “nearly” every minute of it.”
HOLLINGBOURNE – Ryan Chandler, Mark Swift, Tom Parkinson, Simon Massey, Liam Dawson, Joe Terry, Dave Illingworth, Gary Rose, Tom Green, Brett Ince, Nick Noworthy
Subs – Sammy Swift, Carl Robinson, Chris Illingworth, Joe Mason, Matt Smart
QUESTED – James Smith, Jack West, Bryan Greenfield, Lee Reilly, Frazer Rogers, Michael Jenner, Ricky Freeman, Ben Brown, James MacDonald, Stuart West, Lewis Taylor
Subs – Gary Leigh, Louis Valencia, Tom Staff, Ross Brookes
Referee – Stuart Marriott
Assistants – Ollie Smith & Joe McKay
Fourth Official – Nigel Eagelton
Pictures supplied by Julian Hart Photography